


Long Live the King.

by runrarebit



Series: Descent [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Barely leashed writer running free and not worrying for once, Casual Murder, Confusion, Dreams, Evolving summary, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Family Issues, Film canon pretty much only and even then questionable in places., Force Ghosts, Force-Sensitive Hux, Grief, Hux Backstory, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Past Child Abuse, Past DubCon, Past Exploitation, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Underage, Poor Hux, Possible Redemption, Probably not how one's supposed to write something, Psychic interference, Regret, Self indulgent navel-gazing like usual, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Tags May Change, Titles are not my forte, Trauma, Violence, Visions, hints at sexual violence, mentioned animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-01 03:58:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 25,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13286514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: Note: Changed the title from The King is Dead.Kylo Ren should be riding high after recent events, but things are bothering him, not least the vivid and erotic dreams he's started having about Hux, as well as twisted memories of the past and visions that may lead him to a future.Meanwhile just about everything is bothering Hux. Ever since Crait things just don't seem right. His sense of self seems off in some fundamental way.Now it seems that both of them must work out if they'll stay the men Snoke made them or if their future lies as something else. This is made harder by the past, which just won't stay dead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning if I write any more I might play around with totally AU ideas about Rey's parentage which would contradict part if the movie's message, be rather Star Wars, and might upset some readers.

Kylo Ren dreams in gold, in red. Satin sheets. Thin, near-white limbs and copper hair. A head thrown back. Eyes slitted. Body lost in convulsions, searching, yearning for something. 

He dreams, but they are not his dreams. It infuriates him. 

He does not know where these dreams come from. They are some contamination from outside. At times, at night when he has awoken dangled in grey sheets wet with sweat and come he wonders if they are some punishment from the Force for killing his Master.

Hux is nothing. A convenience at best, a face between himself and the troops he now calls his own. At worst Hux is traitorous, weak, whimpering and crawling. Hux is an animal. A Force-null. Unnecessary. Hux is to be despised Hux is to be used until his use runs out. To think any more of Hux is to deny a fundamental lesson Snoke taught. Hux is a dog to be leashed, nothing more.

In his dreams Hux is tight and clenching, desperate, wanting. Hux is the embodiment of sex, of the desire he has never fully reconciled in himself. Worse yet Hux is comfort, a creature to pet and stroke when he’s stressed, who will embrace him and murmur soft words. The Hux of his dreams is a different animal to the high strung neurotic that creeps around the ship screeching orders. 

The night before he took an officer to his bed. A thin little man with blue eyes and white blond hair whose name he doesn’t care to remember. There had been want in the man’s mind, but for his power and status, for what serving him might gain, and not for himself. He’d fucked the man roughly, so there were streaks of red in the white leaking out when he was done, and felt nothing. 

In his life has he had sex with only two people and neither has left him feeling anything other than cold and used. He might as well be thirteen once more and sneaking around behind Luke’s back, afraid of his uncle’s judgement, afraid to confront the fact that _she’d_ only been using him to try to get close to his family.

Part of him wants to be held close, both like and unlike the way his parents held him when he was a child. Instead of being small and enveloped by those who should have protected him, he wants to be big and strong, embraced with love and reverence by one who relies on him. He had thought it possible with Rey, but she was only a child, a fool, incapable of putting aside the past and moving forward with him. He dreams of it with Hux. 

This morning after he left the bed where he slept alone and dreamt of Hux, the little blond long since dismissed, he stuck his lightsabre through the face of the first stuffed, starchy little twit he encountered. 

He hates the First Order. Most of them don’t even feel like real people when he reaches out to them with the Force. There’s something wrong with their minds, the way they think, some external framework that prevents their minds from working naturally. Worse yet are the ones that do feel like real people, because their minds are small and petty, greedy and filled with spite, or worse yet burning feverishly with fanaticism. He would have expected Hux to be one of the latter, but the other man’s mind is twisted further into unnatural shapes than any other member of the First Order he has ever met.

He thinks of killing him. He imagines sticking his lightsabre through his face like he did to that officer earlier. The thought makes him both hard and horrified. He can’t work out what sensation is his and what is a leftover from those dreams, so he doesn’t act. Anyway he cannot deny that Hux is convenient. That Hux can keep his eye on things and report back without him having to oversee every petty little detail himself. Being the Supreme Leader is more tedious than he expected. 

Since their last scrap with the resistance (he does not count the death of Snoke, which can be nothing but a benefit to any cause) they are not so well placed as they were before. They still sit in orbit around Crait as the remain of the Supremacy are picked over for anything useful. 

Sometimes he takes his shuttle down to the surface, the red salt glowing in the light like garnets. It makes him think of glowing red stones set in gold. It makes him imagine draping gems around Hux’s throat, only sometimes those rubies and gold become onyx set in silver. That thought makes him feel oddly satisfied, like he’s won something. He still dresses in black, he has no desire for Snoke’s ostentation.

He likes the foxes, they seem so lithe, light and free. He wishes he was free. He thought he’d be free when he killed Snoke, but it feels like the invisible yoke he’s lived with since even before Luke betrayed him has only gotten heavier. The abandoned rebel base makes him think of his mother, of his father, of Luke, of all the ways they have lived their lives as fools- always fighting for the wrong things.

The past must be killed for the future to come into being. 

The last time he went down to the surface he picked up a salt crystal, near perfect, the colour like fresh spilled blood. He takes it out of his pocket and rolls it between his fingers. Leia will have to die. Rey too, if he cannot bring her around to the right side. He no longer feels conflicted, the Light no longer calls to him. With Snoke dead he is the Dark Side, he should be complete. Why then does he still reach out?

He tries to contact her, but she ignores him and all he gets from the Universe is dreams of Hux. 

Hux will have to die. Hux will die. He will, he will kill the other man- but only once he’s no longer useful. 

When Hux is dead, when his mother is dead, when Rey is dead, then and only then, he will be free. 

The salt crystal crushes in his fist with barely a thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure I like how this turned out, but I've decided to just let myself roll with it.

_Something is wrong. His thoughts feel wrong. Where is he? How long has he been here?_

The strange clumsiness Hux has been experiencing fades as the days pass after their stalemate against the Resistance at Crait. This is something of a relief. He can now walk his rooms, dress, eat, wash, pace the Finalizer, give orders, and no longer trip over things or drop them when they seem to lurch suddenly into his hands. He wishes life had more relief to offer, but it doesn’t, so he makes do.

They are still in orbit around Crait while the Supremacy is looted. The Dreadnoughts affected by the suicide run had all been destroyed, unsalvageable as anything more than scrap, but the Supremacy still has great swathes unaffected by devastation. The whole process is taking longer than he expected and even now is giving forth the unanticipated. The latest surprise is the recovery of Captain Phasma, miraculously alive, though rather far from whole and well. 

She lies now in the Medbay of the Finalizer, head, torso and left arm all that remains, and even those parts burnt beyond recognition. The wretched state they found her in even made the Supreme Leader shift uncomfortably, but perhaps that was only her current resemblance to his dead grandfather cockled out of his shell. She’ll need life support armour like Vader’s if she wants to live a long life, let alone be any use to the First Order. She’d chuckled, half choking on the liquid in her lungs, and insisted that it should at least be chrome instead of black when she’d roused enough to be informed of her fate. 

He feels nothing for her. He can remember the feeling of having respect for her, of thinking her a good soldier, and ruthless, and dedicated, but it’s no more than shadows in his mind. When she’d returned to unconsciousness and he’d been left alone by the medidroids he’d found his hand lingering over the console to her life support, so very near to the controls that would turn it off. Things like this keep happening. It is like some part of him, some other consciousness is doing things without his permission. 

A few nights ago he woke designing bombs large enough to wipe out the rest of the fleet in his dreams. In his sleep he’d fetched his pad, made rough sketches, done calculations and started on a proper blueprint. At least half of it was sleep mad scribbles, but the rest, the rest he had carefully memorised and then deleted. The pad had ended up in one of the ship’s incinerators, it was too dangerous to leave anything even slightly traitorous around where it might be stumbled upon. He’d requisitioned a new one without any problems, after all with their new Supreme Leader on board property damage was only to be expected.

He can feel the oncoming storm in the air, but he doesn’t know what form it will take.

If the First Order is to survive they must act now. They have been shown to be weak; the Fleet is devastated, Supreme Leader Snoke is dead (reportedly at the hands of a scavenger girl from Jakku, of all wretched places), their new Supreme Leader is a mentally unstable dark Jedi (or whatever they’re called) and worse yet son of the leader of the Resistance, and the other surviving members of the high command (most of them indolent planet-dwellers) are getting restless (which is trouble for him, if no one else. Snoke may have treated him as 2IC, but to most of the rest of them he is nothing more than a bastard brat from Arkanis who has inherited every part of his mother’s sinful, commoner blood). Kylo Ren doesn’t realise how tenuous a grip on the reins of power is. 

He almost wishes they could conceal Snoke’s death, not that the new Supreme Leader would let them, if for no other reason than a large part of First Order Finances were either Snoke’s private fortune or invested in Snoke’s name. 

He has no idea who Snoke’s financial heir is. The way he sees it there’s either a lot of violence or a lot of arse licking in the future if the First Order wants to keep going. Perhaps the new Supreme Leader will be able to wave his hand about and use his force powers to convince a lot of powerful people working for powerful banks, powerful families, and other powerful organisations to hand over the cash. 

The financial aspects of the First Order were always Snoke’s business. He raised funds without disclosing from where and distributed them as he saw fit, the only reason Hux himself knows anything about it is from berth talk and overheard conversations with bankers. Snoke always liked to brag, his successes put him in a good mood, and any awe or respect shown could quickly turn him amorous. 

Snoke is dead. His old way of life is in danger. The First Order is in danger.

The worst thing is how little he cares. He goes through the motions, does the right things, says the right things, gives the right commands, does his best to stay out of Kylo Ren’s way, but the rest of the Fleet could burn down around them and he’s not sure he’d feel the slightest apprehension.

Often he finds that he misses the simplicity of life when Snoke was still alive. He misses having purpose. Sometimes he even misses Snoke’s attentions.

His body has begun to heal, _has it?_ , the bruises fading, bones knitting, the ache deep inside subsisting to nothingness. Each night he goes to bed alone and each morning he wakes alone, he goes through his days not being summoned or grabbed at, though still he waits for it. Longer stretches of time have existed for him without Snoke’s ardour in the past. Times when Snoke has been busy, or angry, or too far away to project himself let alone visit in body.

He is not sure when the sexual aspect of their relationship began. He was in his mid to late teens when his father first presented him to the older man, sixteen or seventeen. It wasn’t long after that, but at the same time it feels like there was no beginning; that it was a state eternal. He has no memory of pursuing the other male, of being interested, only of being pulled in close, pulled onto Snoke’s lap. 

There’s no point thinking about it. It’s over. 

He can also remember being dressed up in fine clothes, silks, dark colours and once or twice gold, sometimes barely dressed at all. He can remember draping himself against Snoke’s side while the older man talks, not with members of the First Order high command, but other men and women in finery with other prettily dressed creatures hanging off them. Plotting and planning. Money matters. Being petted like something soft, expensive and stupid.

The memories make no sense. His entire life he has worn nothing but the uniform of the First Order. 

Snoke had liked the colour of his hair, he used to tangle his long fingers in it, to twist strands around and around, to touch and pet and play with it almost without thought. Once he had said, fingers wrapped in copper locks, “If it wasn’t for this you would be a truly ugly thing.” It had hurt. 

_There is something yawning out inside of him. Something rudely severed. Some bond. Some other self, or shape of self, or something almost like a snapped leash. He can feel the collar around his throat, digging in to flesh red and raw and ringed in bruises._

Hux wakes up back in his wardrobe. 

He remembers going through a day. He remembers giving orders. He remembers Kylo Ren randomly slaying another one of his officers. He can remember trying to talk to the new Supreme Leader about not treating his troops as if they were expendable because that is the sort of thing one should do in such a situation. He can remember being choked again, flung against a wall. He is bruised again, around his throat. His side. He had forgotten. How had he forgotten he was hurt again? He had returned to his rooms. He was thinking about things. He was thinking about Snoke. Then for a while there was nothing. Now there is nothing. There is only Hux, in his wardrobe. Hiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter's almost done. I'll probably post it tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but I am still writing, so if you want enjoy the ride with me while it lasts.

He is beginning to think calling himself Kylo Ren is a bit childish, but he’s not sure. He is the Master of the Knights of Ren, even if he hasn’t seen the rest of them in too long, but still he must remember he is his own man now. It’s true that it was the Sith way to discard your old name when you took up your new life, but perhaps that should be discarded just as he intends to discard all other Sith traditions. He tries calling himself Ben. He looks into the mirror above his sink and tries it out. “Ben,” he says, watching his fat, red mouth form the words. “Ben Solo, Supreme Leader of the First Order.” It feels odd. He’ll keep thinking about it. 

Better to think about that than think about choking Hux and throwing him around again. He probably shouldn’t keep killing Officers. It’s not like he needed Hux to point it out. He is aware that it doesn’t exactly breed loyalty, fear yes, but not loyalty. It’s just that they disgust him. It’s like swatting flies. They don’t even make him angry any more, but he doesn’t want them near him and sometimes he lashes out without thinking.

He needs to sleep. He’s been putting it off because of the dreams. Because if he keeps dreaming about Hux, all warm and willing beneath him, he’s not sure he’ll be able to keep a firm enough grip on the other man’s leash. If he feels bad for flinging Hux into things now, he can’t imagine how guilty he’ll feel when he kills him later. He doesn’t want Hux’s spectre following him around like his father’s. Like Luke’s.

He sinks, cross-legged, to the floor in front of his berth, dressed in nothing but soft sleep pants. Eyes closed he reaches out, tries to feel Rey, tries to reconnect. He shouldn’t keep doing this, but as the days pass loneliness is returning. That lost, soul-sick feeling he sometimes had before he killed Snoke. 

She’d needed him, just for a little while, but she had. She’d seen something in him. Seen an equal. He’s never had an equal before, only those above or below him. She’d been lost and lonely too, betrayed by her family.

_Out in the desert. Jakku. Beneath the sands. He can feel them there, the shapes of shallow graves. There are bodies there, desiccated by the dry sand and hot sun. A man. A woman. Her mother. He reaches out for the shape of them, their lingering presence in the Force…_

_Instead of Rey he finds **her.** She’s at a gaming table on Telbanefva, a pleasure planet with nowhere near the elite reputation of Canto Bight, but which’s seeing a resurgence in popularity after recent events on its rival. She’s hanging off the arm of some old humanoid, stance as loose and louche as the dark, teal silk dress barely covering her. _

_**For a moment he is her. Her hips, lower, back, knees, ankles, feet all ache near unbearably from the sky high heels she’s been wearing all evening. Her face feels like it’s on fire under the makeup from the most recent procedure she’s had to hold back the years. Her long brown hair, now starting to silver at the temples, though that’s hidden with dye, is pulled back too tight by the bejewelled clasp holding it off her long, thin neck. She’s got a headache. She wants a stim. Her stomach roils and burns from too much drink and no food, but food puts on weight, and drink takes the weight off her mind. She squeezes in close to the guy she’s with, wondering if he’ll let her stay in his rooms again tonight. Maybe she can make him another husband, if she plays her cards right. She leans forward when he bids and purses her plump, pumped up lips to blow on the dice in his paw. Maybe tonight will bring luck to both of them.** _

For a moment he’s startled by how much closer she is to his mother’s age than his. Then-

_He’s inside of **her** , thrusting between her long, pale legs. Except instead of the **her** of the gaming table and Telbanefva it’s the **her** of back then, body still in its prime and supple and slender, instead of worn old and too thin, nearing skeletal. _

_It takes a moment and then he realises that he’s the him of now, not back then. Kylo Ren full grown, not Ben the boy. His body dwarfs hers, conceals hers, holds hers down. Her wrists are breakable in his hands. He buries his face against her neck, feeling her high, tight breasts press against his chest._

_She is so wet, encouraging him. She struggles, head arched back, trying to grab him with the hands he holds beside her head. She’s moaning, calling for him, mewing how good he is to her. Her chest arches against his. Her legs clench around his waist. He can feel her spasm around his cock. He’s a good boy a good boy a good boy a good boy a good boy._

**I would have done something if I’d known.**

Luke.

 _ **He’s inside Hux. Hux’s hands are free, tangled in his hair. They’re face to face, like he was with**_ her. _ **Hux is moaning, so softly, bitten back little sounds of pleasure. He presses kisses against Hux’s sharp jaw, the corner of his mouth. He’s trying to kiss Hux. Hux is trying to kiss him. They’re panting too hard. They never quite meet.**_

****Hux is beneath him, on his stomach. His body is tense, hands clenched in the red sheets. His body is an image of endurance. Little punched out grunts eke their way out between his lips. His own gnarled hands clench in the other’s copper hair and twist his head to the side. Hux’s eyes are clenched shut.** **

**_**Hux’s legs are clenched around his waist. He can’t get as deep as he wants in this position, but he doesn’t want to pull back, pull away, to gain the leverage. He pets at Hux’s side, soothing him, running his hands up smooth, scarred flesh until he cups the other man’s jaw with his large, strong hand. Hux turns his head, presses a kiss to his palm, then tries to turn his head to hide it against the slate coloured pillow. He leans down and finally, finally takes Hux’s lips.** _ **

****He drags Hux backwards by his hair, his hard cock slipping free to slap against pale flesh as he flips the other man onto his back. He grabs the other man’s legs and forces them open, forces them back until knees press against a skinny, bruised chest. He thrusts back inside, delighting in the wince. Hux’s eyes are squeezed shut, tears welling in the lashes. Worship me worship me worship me worship me worship me worship me** love me. **He slaps Hux hard across the face, making the other man’s eyes spring open.** **

****

****

****

****

**_Hux’s eyes slit open, unfocussed from pleasure. They are a pale, indeterminate colour, like the sea under a grey sky. They finally focus, looking up into his own. He sees something there, reflected in the colour, in the sea-_ **

**** The sea. The island. The temple. Something’s burning or has been burning or will be burning. Luke. This is where Luke was. He knows this place. He knows where this place is. The knowledge unspools in his mind like it’s always been there, like it will always be there. 

His legs hurt. He sucks in a deep breath and it feels like the first breath of a newborn. Lurching off the floor he doesn’t even bother dressing before he’s out the door and chasing down Hux. The first Jedi temple, perhaps there’s nothing there anymore, now that Luke is gone, but maybe there are answers. Maybe there is purpose.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the last few months one of our dogs has been seriously ill, and things have taken a sudden and dramatic turn for the worst today. I am not sure what the next few days will bring, or what emotional fallout there will be. I have decided to post the chapter I finished earlier now even though I’m not sure when, or if, I’ll be writing any more of this. 
> 
> By telling you these details I am not begging for sympathy. I have always been an intensely private person, too private, to the point I think it’s a character flaw. 
> 
> The real reason I am telling you is that in recent years I find myself more and more aware of the universality of grief. It is part of our humanity, it speaks to our capacity to form attachments, to think beyond ourselves as individuals. So my heart goes out to those of you who have and are and will suffer loss and heartache, because to think only of my own pain is to be selfish, and because sometimes sympathy is all one has to offer. I don’t know how much sense I’m making, sorry.

Hux’s shuttle touches down gently in the service docking bay, locking in place automatically. There is no power to this part of the Supremacy so there is no shield, no atmospheric regulation. He is wearing a spacesuit, simple, white, not too different than a Stormtrooper’s armour. All that distinguishes him as something more are the marks of rank. 

He follows the procedure for exiting his shuttle in a no-atmosphere zone. His boots are magnetized or else he’d just float off with only the suit’s propulsion system to make his way around. He prefers the illusion of gravity rendered by the boots.

His footsteps make no noise, bit he imagines determined footsteps echoing through the halls he passes, as they have in the past. The suit makes his customary stride awkward, makes his arms hang by his sides in an ungainly manner. The end result is a feeling of vulnerability which he resents. He is too used to feeling vulnerable recently.

First thing on the Bridge this morning and the techs working to salvage the Supremacy had reported that they’d discovered Snoke’s personal chambers, intact, sealed, and with their own atmospheric regulators running. No one had been able to break in and they didn’t have the codes. He’d told them to concentrate their efforts elsewhere. 

All techs are currently on the other piece of the Supremacy. He’d made sure before he launched. He’s not quite sure why he’s doing this, but he does have the codes, for ease of access. Snoke had never feared betrayal from him. He’d never feared betrayal from Kylo Ren either. Snoke was remarkably shortsided. No matter what the new Supreme Leader says he knows deep down inside that there was a failure on Kylo Ren’s part, at least a moment of disloyalty involved, that led to Snoke’s death.

The corridors are deserted aside from the bodies that float uselessly, preserved by the vacuum. Men and women, Stromtroopers, techs, officers. All salvageable droids have already been removed. He gently pushes a young officer with free floating dark hair out of the way. The bodies won’t be retrieved, it’s against First Order policy. What remains of the Supremacy will become a ghost ship.

The doors to Snoke’s personal chambers are big, black, shiny. He keys in his access codes and watches them slide open. Inside there is an antechamber, converted automatically into an airlock by the loss of pressure outside. The exterior walls are as thick and reinforced as the ship’s outer hull, the atmospheric regulators are independently powered and self-sustaining, and there are enough rations and supplies to last at least a month. Snoke had prepared for mutiny, for siege, for a fatal hull breach. Snoke had not prepared for his own death.

When the airlock has filled with atmosphere he removes the spacesuit, stripping out of it in minutes and draping it over his arm as he opens the inner door and walks further inside. The floor is like a lake of black water, perfectly smooth and slick. The walls are dark, hung with rich red and gold tapestries. The furniture is minimal, expensive, and sits surrounded by the treasure of myriad worlds. 

He runs a pale hand over the pale wooden frame of a black leather couch, upholstered in the hide of some sapient being whose species he cannot remember. Not human, as if that really counts. He has sat naked on this couch. His face has pressed against the skin of some thinking being killed to become Snoke’s furniture. 

Snoke’s bedroom is up ahead, the door a smooth, glistening panel set into the wall. He leaves the spacesuit slung over the back of the couch.

Snoke’s bed dominates the bedroom. It stands on a dais like a throne. The frame is made of yet more wood, dark this time, something ancient and rare, precious, and with a sweet, slightly smoky natural perfume. The twisted natural shape of branches have been tamed, ancient sigils have been inscribed into it as well as figures that Snoke said were dancing, but that to his eyes look as if they’re writhing in agony. The headboard is huge, arching up towards the high ceiling so it looms menacingly over the room. In places it is inlaid with patterns of bone, ivory and horn and he doesn’t think about where such things may have been harvested.

The sheets are red, brighter than fresh blood, beneath an abstract patterned coverlet in cloth-of-gold. He sinks down to sit on the nearest edge, the cold feel of the metal woven into the cover rough against his hands. The bed is big, large enough to hold six of him, Kylo Ren and Snoke. His own berth is just wide enough to lie on his side with his limbs tucked in close. He lies back on the bed, staring up at the black ceiling, at his form reflected darkly in the high-gloss surface. 

A breath, one, two, the bed is soft enough to cushion his flesh but not so soft that he sinks down. He closes his eyes, sees Snoke looming above him, the headboard shadowing him like a pair of monstrous wings. He opens his eyes. 

The wall behind the headboard is gilded, a faint pattern that he could never distinguish embossing its lustrous surface. He lies there and lets his eyes trace over it, again and again, no closer to working it out. His throat hurts from the way he has his head turned, plum coloured bruises once more collaring him. 

Kylo Ren. Supreme Leader. Snoke. 

Something beeps. He’s being commed again. 

“General Hux? Come in General Hux?”

“What?” he sighs. There is a pause. His voice sounded too soft, unprofessional.

“The Supreme Leader-” the cultured voice of the commstech is interrupted by Kylo Ren’s “Why are you on the Supremacy?”

“What makes you think I’m there?” same voice. Too soft. 

“Your lifesigns are reading from there. From Snoke’s chambers. How did you get into Snoke’s chambers?” The new Supreme Leader is sounding annoyed. A hand flies to his throat reflexively. 

He sits up, tries to gather some of his usual stridency. “Using my codes.”

There is silence. He imagines Kylo Ren chewing on the though of him having codes to Snoke’s inner sanctum as though finding himself with a mouthful of rotten meat. The silence drags.

“Return to the Finalizer. We have a mission.” The line cuts out.

For a moment he’s tempted to stay, to wait out Kylo Ren’s wrath in Snoke’s luxurious quarters. He gets up and heads back out to put on his spacesuit and return to his shuttle.

When he docks with the Finalizer he finds the Supreme Leader waiting, barefoot and undressed to the waist, in clinging trousers. It’s like being slapped, all that bare skin. The awareness becomes unavoidable that Kylo Ren is a man, not just a monster, a creature of flesh and blood, skin and bone, sinew and muscle. A lot of muscle. He’s remarkably well built for someone who can use his mind to fling people around. 

A flush starts across his cheeks, to be joined by the one making its way up his neck as he disembarks. He averts his eyes as he approaches, coming to attention red faced and reluctant. His entire body is tense, braced, for the inevitable attack. It never comes. Kylo Ren is watching him with dark eyes.

“I have discovered the location of Skywalker’s planet,” the other man says, voice perfectly level. It’s not what he expected. He catches himself frowning and carefully smooths his face.

“Skywalker is dead,” he replies, and then flinches. Corrects. “ _You_ have reported Skywalker’s death. Is there any need to visit this planet?”

“Yes,” Kylo Ren replies, simply, and then confuses things by adding. “We will take the Finalizer. The rest of the Fleet shall remain here and finish salvaging the Supremacy.”

“We?” he finds himself asking.

“Yes,” the Supreme Leader’s eyes are boring into him. He cannot read the expression on the other man’s face. _“We.”_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the carry on before last chapter. The expected happened and now what's left is grief. Not sure how good this chapter is, but I needed a distraction. I haven't posted stories like this, by writing and posting as I go instead of stopping to think and edit, in the better part of a decade. It's an interesting experience, hopefully a beneficial one.

The planet is mainly ocean. Kylo Ren sits on the padded seat of the luxurious short-range shuttle and stares out the porthole, watching the tiny landmasses, grey and green, get closer. 

They’ve left the Finalizer in orbit. Usually he would have taken his own shuttle, but it would be crowded with Hux, the two Stormtroopers Hux insisted on as backup in case the Resistance was lying in wait, and the weedy little brunet officer flying the ship. The little man’s familiar, and he vaguely remembers choking him with the Force at some time. 

He’s not sure how long they’ll be on the planet, so he wanted adequate accommodations at least for the night. Who knows what squalor Luke was living in. Hux doesn’t seem the type that would cope well with roughing it. Hence this particular ship, designed more for ferrying visiting dignitaries from planet to ship, ship to ship and back to planet than anything practical, with plushly cushioned chairs, and two small private cabins as well as a berthroom for crew. 

Curiosity is still flickering at the edge of his mind. He wants to know what Hux was doing in Snoke’s personal chambers. He also wants to know how Hux got access codes. The thoughts make him angry, but he doesn’t know why. For a while he thought it was because Hux was probably off plotting against him, but now he’s not sure. 

Before they left he ordered the recovery techs to cut Snoke’s quarters free of the Supremacy and bring them on board the Rectitude. They should fit in one of the lower deck service docks. When he gets back he’s going to crack them open like an egg, take what’s rightfully his, and see what Hux was up to. The redhead won’t be allowed near them again, so if he has anything to hide it’ll be revealed before he can do anything to conceal it. Unless he already has, earlier.

He remembers the strangeness of Hux’s voice. The softness, the intimacy. He pushes the memory away.

Hux is certainly acting suspiciously. He’s very quiet, sitting across the aisle staring out another porthole, and his mind feels almost empty when he brushes the surface. He withdraws quickly, worrying that prolonged contact will somehow suck him down, further entangle himself. 

He’s not even sure why he wanted Hux to come with him. It would be easier to go alone, find what he needs to find, get answers without witnesses, but he remembers the vision, remembers finding this planet, these islands, in Hux’s eyes. He glances over at Hux, pale and tired, face blank, and feels as if the Force itself is telling him that he needs the other man here. It makes no sense. What use could the Force have for Hux?

Hux is nothing. The fact is getting harder to remember, even though he has barely spoken to the other man recently, and even then their conversations have hardly been friendly. Movement catches his attention. It’s only one of the Stormtroopers shifting in their less luxurious seat. The white armoured figure freezes when they realise he’s watching. A woman, he senses through the force, nervous to be confined with him. He snorts and turns back to the porthole, watching as they pull up over the island he saw in his dreams.

He can see some form of settlement, beehive shaped dwellings clustered together with squat little figures moving around them. They don’t feel hostile in the Force, but he doesn’t know how they’ll respond to new arrivals. If they give him any trouble he’ll just slaughter them all. 

Once they’ve landed he waits for a moment, expecting Hux to leap up and start issuing orders, but the other man is still staring out the porthole. He stands, the movement making Hux’s pale eyes snap over to him. For a breath or two he’s back in the vision. Fucking Hux. Looking into his eyes. He starts to get hard.

“Sir?” he lashes out instinctively with the Force, knocking the pilot, that dark haired officer, against the bulkhead next to the door to the cockpit he’s just exited. He regains control just as fast, but the ship is now even heavier with the fear of its other occupants. He huffs out a breath and wheels towards the exit, gesturing for Hux to follow him when the other man doesn’t move.

Hux shadows him down the ramp, a few, deferential steps behind. He wonders if he’s going to be reprimanded later for striking out at the officer. If Hux starts up he’ll point out that it’s not like he killed the man. He hasn’t killed anyone since he had the vision. Admittedly not even a day has passed, but it is something.

The air smells of the sea. The ground is green and lush under foot. It’s a clear day, the sun bright in a blue sky devoid of all but the smallest, fluffiest of clouds. The wind has a slight chill, but just enough to be refreshing. Animal cries echo, mostly from the small, big-eyed creatures he sees all around him. 

He pauses at the base of the ramp, closes his eyes and opens himself to the Force. He can feel it here, both Light and Dark, strong, but not as strong as it once was. Hux’s presence, muted, appears beside him. 

“If I may ask-” the man begins, voice cautious, “What do you want me to do? I am hardly capable of helping you search for anything ‘Jedi’ related.”

He ignores him. He doesn’t have an answer, but he isn’t going to let Hux know that. “Come,” he says instead, heading towards the strange little settlement. 

Hux follows, trotting at his heels like a well-trained pet. Something pretty and lean, a fox of some kind, sharp like those crystal ones, though the wrong colour. 

The settlement is as small as it looked from the air. At their arrival the creatures approach cautiously, chattering at him in a language he can’t understand. He can feel all of them in the Force and knows they can feel him. None of them are Force-null, but none of them feel strong enough to do more than sense things weakly. They seem almost happy to have visitors, though also a little wary. Once of them, older than most, and seemingly senior, weakly projects a series of images to him through the Force. Rey breaking things. 

_Pain lances through his chest. He remembers her rejection. He doesn’t strike out._ Instead he tries to reassure the beings that he has no attention of destroying anything. He gets the sense they know they couldn’t do anything about it even if he decided to drive the whole island into the sea.

Hux is so awkward, standing hunched in his greatcoat, looking balefully around. He seems a thing of the inside world, of artificial lights and darkness; the sunlight shows how pale and sickly he actually looks. The redhead keeps sneaking glances at the creatures crowding around but doesn’t look at them directly. The First Order has never had any room for anyone who’s anything other than plain human and he doesn’t know if Hux shares that view, has no memories of ever discussing it with him or hearing him pontificate about it, or if it’s just that he’s rarely if ever met anyone who fits that classification.  
The clomp of armoured boots announces the arrival of the Stormtroopers to stand bracketing the General, seeming as equally suspicious of the creatures as their commander. 

He can’t help remember the freedom of his childhood. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to get away from Hux, from the First Order, from the banality of it all. “Remain here,” he orders, stalking away without a rearward glance. There are presences in the Force he wants to investigate, without Hux.


	6. Chapter 6

The Supreme Leader has been gone for hours. For the first hour he stood around with nothing to do, observing the little beings who at first observed him, but then returned to scurrying around. For the second hour he and the two Stormtroopers poked around in the beehive shaped dwellings, finding few small signs of any recent habitation in any, with the exception of one. There were old clothes, robes stained from years of wear and harsh weather, and a few personal items. He’d had a strange sense of loss, of regret, something sore and choking like the bruises around his throat. He’d fled back outside without staying long.

The third hour he’d ordered the Stormtroopers back to the ship. There was nothing to do, no threat, and he was starting to feel awkward having them around. Kylo Ren had told him to remain here, but that didn’t mean they had to, anyway he had a blaster. The ease with which they’d gone told him all he needed to know about how eager they were to stay with him.

Once they’d left the little beings had started crowding around him again, chattering amongst themselves. He didn’t know what to make of them. They are sapient, he can tell, non human, and seeming content to live in such a small, remote place. They’re very different to what he’s used to. 

He doesn’t know what they want from him, has no frame of reference. One of them holds something out to him, a bowl full of pale, greenish liquid. Milk. His stomach turns. He has lived most of his life eating nothing but rationbars and has no appetite for anything else. Rationbars, water and stims instead of Kaf. He will never again taste his mother’s cooking. 

He waves the bowl away, eyes averted from the milk. The creatures chatter, their voices sounding almost concerned. He has no idea if non humans can feel empathy with humans, his father always argued that it was impossible. Another creature reaches out, slowly, gently, and takes his hand. He stares at it, it looks back, making a soft, churring noise, and gesturing to one of the empty dwellings.

Not sure why he is allowing it to happen he lets the creature pull him to his feet and lead him over to the dwelling, another one darting ahead to open the door for them. Once inside the creature gestures at a soft looking pallet bed on the floor. It churrs again, pointing emphatically.

It wants him to sleep. He doesn’t know why, or if it’s just lulling him into letting his guard down, but all of a sudden he is exhausted. Not even fully aware of what he’s doing he sinks down to sit on the edge of the bed, letting the creature churr and fuss at him, pulling off his boots and helping him lie down with his greatcoat covering him like a blanket. As he begins to drift into sleep it almost feels as if the creature is whispering in his ear **“rest.”**

_He is in a pale room, not quite white, and lit as if sunlight was flooding in floor to ceiling windows, even though the walls are blank and whole. He spins around slowly, but there are no distinguishing features, barely even a sense of where the floor ands and the walls begin. He blinks and the room turns gray._

_“You’re not what I expected,” a voice says behind him._

_He whirls to face the threat, hand flying to a blaster he’s not wearing. In fact he’s not wearing his clothes, his uniform, instead he’s wearing pale, earth toned robes like the ones he found earlier._

_The man looking at him is young, younger than he is, and honey-haired. There’s a world weariness to his expression that doesn’t quite match the youthful prettiness of his features. For a moment he seems to blur around the edges, older versions of that face overlaying each other like a film of a leaf withering, before he settles back into a young man, untouched by trouble or war. He is vaguely familiar, but Hux cannot recall where he’s seen him before._

_“What do you mean?” he asks, crossing his arms awkwardly across his chest. He wishes he had that blaster. Why doesn’t he?_

_**“Starkiller,”** the man says, and a flinch, something like revulsion shudders through Hux at the word, “That’s what they call you, isn’t it?” He doesn’t reply, the man doesn’t seem to expect one. “All the horrors that were happening while I locked myself away and did nothing. Oh well.” A frown and the man is coming closer, he backs away but the other seems to be moving at twice the pace he expects. “You don’t look like a Starkiller,” the words are almost breathed against his lips. _

_He hasn’t been this close to someone since the Supreme Leader died. Snoke._

_“Ah!” the mans says, backing off. “I see. Yes, I see it now. All those strings tied to all of us.”_

_Huge windows suddenly open up in the walls, the room shrinks, the floor becomes stone with massive pillars holding up a domed roof. Outside is a luscious place, a rainforest rich in plants and animal calls. He sees birds fluttering from branch to branch, feeding from large, creamy flowers._

_“We can’t undo what we’ve done,” the man says, looking out onto the jungle. Hux pads towards the other, to stand beside him, taller than his honey-topped head, and watch the birds. “What matters is what we, well, **you** really, do now.”_

_He frowns down at the other man, realising that the brunet is looking up at him ruefully with stunningly blue eyes. “I don’t understand,” he says, and the sense of helplessness he’s been struggling with since Snoke’s death suddenly feels like it’ll drown him._

_“You’re really not what I expected,” the man says, taking his arm and leading him to a stone bench that suddenly materialises. They sit, side by side. He feels strong finger tips brush the skin of his face as the man tucks a loose strand of copper coloured hair behind his ear. “We’ve all been puppets, but the puppet master is gone.”_

_He feels cold. He remembers things, other touches, crueller touches. “Snoke?”_

_The man murmurs an agreement, still stroking his hair. Hux looks at him, sees those blue eyes roving over his face. All of a sudden he feels very human, only human, nothing more. He doesn’t feel like a General of the First Order, just a man, sitting steeped in his mistakes._

_“It’ll continue though, I realise that now,” the other man says, removing his hand from Hux’s hair and pressing it to his eyes. He breaths deeply, Hux watches him, waiting. “I wanted it to end.”_

_“What to end?” he whispers._

_Suddenly the man leaps to his feet, reaching down to help Hux up. He stumbles upright, wrists held in the graps of two strong hands. For a moment one of them becomes a prosthetic, a robotic hand cold against his flesh, but then it’s skin again. “Let me show you something,” the man demands._

_He nods. The room becomes black. **Two little figures of indeterminate species or gender, without features, nothing but glowing, pale shapes materialise in the air before them. A buz, a hum, and then a blue lightsabre ignites in the hand of one and a green lightsabre in the hand of another. For a moment the figures seem to be walking side by side, then they are fighting back to back, then the green lightsabre turns red and they are fighting each other.**_

_**The figure with the red lightsabre defeats the other, running them through so they disappear in a puff of light. The figure with the red lightsabre walks on, alone for a while, before a new figure, just as indeterminate as the first, appears with another red lightsabre. Like with the first two figures they walk side by side for a while, then fight back to back, then fight each other, the new figure triumphing over the first. Then there is one once more.** _

_**This figure walks alone, fights alone, triumphs alone, until suddenly another figure materialises, lightsabre purple, and launches themselves at the first. The fight is vicious and eventually the figure with the purple lightsabre is victorious.** _

_**This figure then walks alone, fights alone, until a new figure with another blue lightsabre suddenly appears. They walk together, they fight back to back, and then more figures appear, none with red lightsabres. They all walk together, fight back to back. The first two fade away, then others, and then a figure’s blue lightsabre suddenly turns red and turns on the others.** _

_**The fight is long and vicious, some disappearing in puffs of light when they’re struck down, but others having their lightsabres turn red and joining the fight against their old comrades. Eventually there are two with red lightsabres and two with green lightsabres, both pairs walking together, ignoring the others with different coloured lightsabres.** _

_**The two with green continue on, walking, fighting back to back, but the pair with red suddenly turn on each other, one slaying the other, before rushing to attack the pair with green. The figure with the red lightsabre slays one of the ones with green, but is eventually defeated by the other, who dies in the process. Then there are none.** _

_**Suddenly another two figures appear, like the first two, one with a green lightsabre, one with a purple, they walk together, they fight back to back. Another one appears, this time with a blue lightsabre. They all walk together, they all fight back to back. Another one with a green lightsabre, another one with a blue. More and more. They walk, they fight. Suddenly the lightsabre of the first one with a blue lightsabre turns red.** _

_**They continue walking with the others, fighting back to back. Slowly the lightsabres of the figures near the one with the red lightsabre begin to turn red as well. More and more of them walk and fight with red lightsabres until there is only the original two figures left, one with purple one with green. Suddenly all the other figures turn on them, slaying them as the two fight back to back, surrounded by enemies.** _

_**The victors stop, standing still for a moment, before they begin to battle each other. Figure after figure dying until there is only one. This figure walks alone, fights alone, until suddenly a new figure with a red lightsabre appears at their side. The two walk side by side, fight back to back, until the red lightsabre of the second one turns blue. As the figures begin to fight the scene faces away** , light returning, until suddenly he and the honey-haired man are standing in the original room._

_“It just continues on and on and on,” the man sighs. “Can you feel it?”_

_“Feel what?” he whispers, but he can feel something, something cold and awful lurking at the corners of his mind._

_Those intensely blue eyes fix him, pierce him with their gaze. “The death we bring.”_

_Suddenly his mind is blank to anything but the screaming, the dying, the suffering brought to all those caught up in the eternal battle between the little figures of before. It gets louder and louder, knowledge piling on knowledge, experience on experience. He is them, all of them, lives twisted, cut short, turned to fodder to feed this uncontrollable impulse to power, to struggle, competition, war. Then, layered atop that horror, he becomes the little figures, their hopes and dreams, their twisted, unnatural emotions. Too strong or too suppressed. Never whole. Never complete. Never at peace._

Hux wakes. He lurches upright, clawing at the greatcoat pinning him down. Eyes unseeing he lives still in the dream, but between one breath, the next it fades. He blinks. He blinks again. He cannot remember what he was dreaming. He cannot remember anything but horror. 

Eyes darting wildly he finds himself still in the small dwelling. His gaze skitters to the door, the small window. He is not safe. A small cry and he curls himself up as small as he can, pulling the greatcoat over his head.


	7. Chapter 7

His reflection stares back at him. This is the mirror Rey told him of. After leaving Hux he had followed the trace of the Dark down, down beneath the island to here. His hair hangs in seaweed like scraggles around his face, dripping cold water that he watches slip down his reflected cheek. 

His experience doesn’t match hers. He approached, saw himself, and that was all. He did not become his own reflection, stretching out before him. Did not become each step as he moved closer and closer, reaching out, searching for an answer he already knows. 

Kylo Ren looks at Kylo Ren and sees nothing.

The Dark is strong here, a deep, cold river. When he reaches out and caresses it with his mind he can feel it, feel it curl around him, cooling and soothing him, before flowing on. There must be more here, more than what Rey found.

_“What are you?”_ he asks it, pushing that curiosity out from himself and into the mirror. Nothing changes. He reaches out a hand, places it on the reflective surface, watches his reflection do the same. It feels cold and smooth. He shuts his eyes, reaches with the Force, pushes power to his fingertips. He feels a sensation like melting ice, something slick and dripping. His eyes open. It vanishes. The mirror is as it was when he found it. 

This isn’t going as he expected. He is beginning to feel like an idiot. 

He sinks down to sit cross-legged, keeping his eye on his reflection. Perhaps if he meditates. The last time he did he was led here. Closing his eyes he tries to clear his mind, reaching out with the Force. Not to Rey, not even to the mirror, just _out._

For a long while nothing happens, his frustration seems to stand between him and everything else like a wall. He breathes in, out, frowning as annoyance begins to rise inside of him. He has never been a great meditator, always too of the Dark side to follow Luke’s gentle, calming instructions, and then too sure that meditating was too much of the Light while under Snoke. 

It’s easier when he has a goal, like trying to reach Rey. Maybe that’s it, Maybe he needs to focus on something he wants, other than the mirror itself. He opens his eyes, thinks about Rey, _reaches_ for her.

The mirror shimmers. A shadow appears behind his reflection. He whirls around, moving into a crouch to defend himself. No one there. He turns back to the mirror. The shadow is swaying closer. The movement is strange, almost familiar. Like a person slowly dancing. Dancing like they’re being watched. Dancing to seduce. 

**Her.**

He’s on his feet without thinking, storming away. Rage builds in him. Chokes him. He lashes out, Force lightening lancing from his fingertips to strike at the shadow. It disappears. The lightning stops. The mirror remains untouched. 

He stares at his hand, clenching it, unclenching it. He’s never done that before. Snoke had promised to teach him one day, but never had. He sinks back down onto his heels, his reflection mimicking him. All too often his mind has slipped to **her** recently. He wonders why. Perhaps it is nothing more than whatever Force damned desire for Hux that is eating his dreams dragging up the past.

For a moment he lets himself think of **her.** It’s been, what, eighteen years now since he saw her. She’d been writing a book on the Jedi, their role as emblems of hope, and what place they might have in the future of the New Republic. That’s why she’d come to Luke’s temple. That’s why they met. She was beautiful, kind, interested in him for himself, not just as the child of two war heroes. He’d followed where she led. 

She left so suddenly, in the night. 

A few months later Snoke had made first contact. 

Something hurts, something in his chest. He lurches forward onto hands and knees, and for a moment he thinks he’s going to vomit, but it passes with the long string of drool that escapes his parted lips.

He sinks down, pressing his face against his forearms. Something, some animal, is making a horrible noise. No, it’s him. He’s crying. He can’t comprehend it. Eventually it stops. He recovers, pulls himself out of his awkward hunch on the ground. Sits up. He can’t quite meet his reflection’s eyes. 

Snoke was right. He is a child. 

Wiping snot and tears from his face he pulls himself back into a cross-legged meditation stance and closes his eyes. He _pushes_ all emotion away, making himself as still and cold as the mirror, and lets his mind drift. 

He can feel the cave, the island, the planet, the water, the atmosphere, the Finalizer up above, the shuttle on the island, the Stormtroopers and officer inside it, the creatures walking around, concentrated at the settlement, Hux, Hux, Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux. He feels different in the Force. He has never reached out for Hux like this, only ever casually brushed his mind. He feels…

_Fear._

His eyes slam open. In front of him, reflected in the mirror, is Snoke hunched over a thin, pale form. For a moment he’s reminded of an animal eating its prey, tearing out soft underbelly. No. Hux is naked. Snoke’s golden robes are open and hanging loose. Snoke’s hips are grinding forward.

The Hux in the reflection turns its face to him. Face blank. Despair in those sea coloured eyes.

The whole island shakes. Dust falling from the ceiling of the cave. Force Lightning arches out from his outstretched hands. Everything becomes brighter, brighter, _white._

When the world settles the mirror is still intact. He’s dirty, grimy from seawater and fallen dirt. He has achieved nothing. 

The mirror is not what he thought it was, not that he had a very concrete idea in the first place, but it is something else. It is a liar, or a bringer of misery, or a thing to disturb the mind and haunt the dreams. 

He cannot imagine Snoke stooping to fucking Hux. It must be an illusion. An illusion born of his own strange desire for the other man. Nothing more than a way to disturb him. He carefully avoids thinking about Hux having codes to Snoke’s private rooms. 

Struggling to his feet, wiping grime from his face, he stares at the reflection of the wretched man he’s become. He has killed his father. He has killed his master. Is this all he is? This grimy, pale, ugly thing reflected back at him, driven to distraction by lust and loneliness. He spits, dirt and phlegm splattering to the ground at his feet.

He turns to walk away, back bowed, but stops. Perhaps this is the lesson of the mirror, perhaps it’s designed to reveal none’s own inadequacies. What kind of man, what kind of Darkside wielder, would he be if he let it scare him off? He turns around, dark eyes meeting dark eyes in the reflective surface. 

Head held high he sinks once more into the meditative pose, reaching out. Out. Out.


	8. Chapter 8

Kylo Ren has been gone three days. Hux intends to give him three more and if he doesn’t return he’ll take the shuttle back to the Finalizer. The new Supreme Leader may very well be dead, and even if he isn’t there’s no reason to waste too much time here, doing nothing.

He’d woken from a fitful doze later that first day when the whole island began to shake. The creatures had darted around, chattering in panic, one of them rushing in to his dwelling to pull him outside to huddle barefoot with the others where no falling debris could get them. 

The quake had been short lived, but since then the creatures have been wary. They chatter amongst themselves in quiet tones, eyes often on some overhang up the mountain. 

They are kind guests, offering him food and ushering him to sit and rest if he seems tired. He _is_ tired, bone deep, but at the same time he feels invigorated as he hasn’t in more time than he can remember. He finds he enjoys the salty sea air, the feel of ground underfoot, the sound of water beating against rock. 

The first night one of them gave him a bowl of stew, smelling of fish and seaweed, with herbs and some pale root vegetable floating in it. The smell had been so close, not quite, but _close_ to the smell of fish stew he remembers as a child on Arkanis that he’d actually managed half a bowl before the nausea of eating something other than a rationbar caught up with him. That night he slept on the shuttle.

The next day he’d returned early to the settlement, leaving the Stormtroopers and Mitaka behind. The good weather had held, and he’d spent the morning exploring the island within sight range of the where Kylo Ren had ordered him to stay. There wasn’t much to see, only rock and earth and grass and water, little animals everywhere. The afternoon had seen him stripping off his greatcoat and rolling up his sleeves to help the creatures move things, clean things, repair things. He hadn’t needed to do it, shouldn’t have wanted to do it, but there was no one to see and he was becoming bored. He’d drunk sweet water and managed more fish stew for dinner, and that night he slept in the settlement, in the dwelling he’d first been led to.

The morning of the third day he’d returned to the shuttle for a change of clothes and some rationbars, finding the place smelling obnoxiously of sex, and its three occupants desperate to appear as if they’d been doing nothing more than being perfectly dutiful members of the First Order while he was gone. The Stormtroopers had hovered protectively around Mitaka while he’d gathered supplies, and he’d done his best, his very _best_ not to think that his father would have sent them all for reconditioning. He hadn’t said anything, just pretended business was usual, and rushed back to the settlement after making sure there were no messages from the Finalizer. 

It was a hot day, not just fine and clear, but almost muggy. The air feels thick, heavy, and it makes perspiration bead on his skin and his movements languid. Even the creatures were moving slower, spending more time sitting and talking to each other than bustling about. 

It reminds him of Arkanis, of hot days before the rain. He can remember the locals, his mother included, lying naked in the sun, basking like sea mammals upon the shore. Her skin had been pearly white, her hair a soft reddish blonde. In his memories she always has bruises from his father, but then so does he. 

The temptations strikes, and he lets it. There’s no one around. No one to care. He finds a large, flat rock near, but not too near, the settlement and starts to strip down. Not to nothing like they did back on Arkanis, but down to his plain underwear. He lays his greatcoat down on the rock and lays down on his belly, letting the sun sink into him, letting it warm him. He’s been cold for so long. 

The heat makes him doze. He feels a soft little form nudge against him and he goes to pet Millicent, but then he remembers she’s dead. The grief rises in him, unchecked, and he lets it come, lets silent tears trail down his face. The little animal makes a shrill sound. He turns towards it, lying on his side. It’s one of those odd winged things, sort of part bird part mammal, that fly even though their anatomy should not allow it. 

It chirrups when he pets it, feeling nothing at all like a cat, but pleasant to the touch. He huffs out a breath and turns back onto his stomach, not pushing it away when it nestles up against him. More warm little weights soon join it and he lets himself doze off amongst them.

A noise wakes him, a choking sound. He sits up, displacing the little animals nesting around him. It’s the Supreme Leader. The thought registers and he’s scrabbling for his greatcoat, making the little creatures flurry off squawking. He wraps the garment around himself and stares at Kylo Ren, only then noticing that he’s bedraggled, sodden and faintly grimy.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks, when the other man doesn’t do anything but look at him.

“Not yet,” Kylo Ren replies, those dark eyes boring into him. He fidgets beneath the coat, tugging it so it covers the knee threatening to escape. The Supreme Leader suddenly shakes his head, looking so much like a wet dog Hux has to choke back a laugh. “Get dressed,” he orders.

Hux waits, but the man makes no move to either leave or look away. He can feel his face flushing, self-consciousness rising in him. He tries to reason with himself. They are both men, it’s nothing Kylo Ren hasn’t seen before, there’s never been any indication that the other man was attracted to men, and even if he was that wouldn’t mean he’d enjoy looking at Hux. He knows he’s ugly. He’s been told it his whole life. He still wants to protest, to demand Kylo Ren look away.

He has a choice, he can let the fear of violent retribution make him do something he’s not comfortable with, or he can point this out and risk getting strangled or thrown around. If he still lived with under the nominal protection of Snoke he’d tell Kylo Ren to bugger off. As it is his modesty isn’t worth more bruises. He lets the greatcoat drop, reaching for his other clothes.

The movement seems to break some spell the Supreme Leader was under, because the moment his bare arms appear Kylo Ren is suddenly lurching around to stare in the opposite direction. Hux feels something in himself relax a little. 

He dresses efficiently, draping the greatcoat back over his shoulders when he’s done, even though the day is too hot to make it comfortable. The little animals start returning from where they fluttered off to, resting once more on the rock where he was lying. He wants to pet them, but Kylo Ren is here now, so he ignores the impulse and approaches the other man, following along when he starts back towards the settlement without a word.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today has been a hard day, not for any external reason, but because of my state of mind. Writing has been harder too. I hope anyone reading this is still enjoying it. I wish you all good days and kindness.

The bruises linger in his mind, harsh, plum coloured accusations that make him want to turn to Hux and grovel and wheedle and beg forgiveness. He hadn’t thought he’d done that much damage. Hadn’t thought he’d done any damage. Hux had never really seemed real, like something that could be _hurt_ before. 

He reminds himself that Hux is his inferior, that it doesn’t matter if the redhead looks like he’s suffered a botched execution by hanging, that he has every right to do to Hux what he wants. The fact that he doesn’t quite believe himself rankles.

_It had been a shock to see him like that. Naked, or near enough to. Lying out where anyone could see._

He’d learnt no more from the mirror. He has no idea how much time he’d lost reaching, trying to find something, some reason, some excuse for their journey here. Eventually hunger had gotten the best of him, driven him away, back above ground. He’ll return before they leave the island, but perhaps he should explore the other places he can sense in the Force first. Maybe the Dark will have more to tell him when he can confront it with the Light.

_What was Hux doing? Did he think this way some island holiday? A time to lounge around undressed in the sun and sip fruity drinks? Even if there were no fruity drinks. And why was he letting all those little animals nest against him? It was undignified._

His stomach growls, loud and humiliating. They’ll need to return to the shuttle for supplies, he huffs out a breath and changes directions, he hates rationbars. “There’s fish stew,” Hux’s voice comes out of nowhere, making him start and turn to face the man before he can stop himself. The redhead stopped when he did, lingering behind with an odd, pinched look on his face. “At the settlement. The creatures were cooking some earlier. They’ll probably share it with you.” 

He’s not sure how he feels about Hux noticing his hunger, but fish stew sounds more promising than rationbars. He nods, turns stiffly back towards the settlement and continues on. After a moment he hears Hux begin to follow him.

_His body was so long and lean, arms, legs, torso. He’s seen Hux’s nipples, soft little points on his bony chest, almost obscenely pink against his pale skin. They looked like sweets, like berries, like he could just bite into them and something sweet would come spurting out._

His cock starts to harden in his pants. He ignores it, focusses on walking naturally. He thinks about returning to the shuttle later, seeing if one of the Stormtroopers or the little ferret of an officer will let him fuck them, let him work off some of his frustration. He could just fuck Hux, whether Hux wanted him to or not, but that seems too much like admitting defeat. 

_The image of Snoke on top of Hux, predator on prey, Hux looking like he is being killed, flashes across his mind._

Anger. A spark. The flash of pain in his fingertips as a small arc of Force Lightening earths itself into a rock.

It takes a few more steps before he realises that Hux isn’t following him anymore. He turns around. The other man is even paler than before, if such a thing was possible, eyes wide and wary on the scorch mark the Force Lightning left on the rock. “Did you learn that here, or did he teach you?” Hux says, his voice so near a whisper that the wind almost takes it before Kylo Ren can hear.

“You’ve seen it before?” he asks, curious. It’s hard to imagine Snoke needing to show off his true power to someone already as under the heel as Hux.

“It’s dangerous,” Hux says, turning those wide eyes on him. Before he can scoff and point out how obvious that is Hux ads, “For you as well. Channelling too much of the raw Force can change the essence of a Force wielder,” those eyes flick away, a grimace coming over Hux’s face, “At least that’s what Snoke said.”

Kylo Ren frowns, moving closer until he’s all but looming over Hux. This wouldn’t be possible, them being so nearly of height, if the other man didn’t sink in to himself at the approach. “When, exactly, did you and Snoke have this conversation?”

Hux blinks at him, face blank, expression almost child-like. “When he killed my father.”

The answer feels like a blow. For a minute he doesn’t understand. The thought of Hux as having parents, as a child, as anything other than springing fully formed from the earth is hard to grasp, but then he remembers hearing his mother talk of Commandant Brendol Hux, notorious fanatic and founding member of the First Order. “What do you mean?”

“He, Snoke, used Force Lightning to kill him.”

“Why?” he asks, “From what I remember your father was loyal to the First Order.”

“I have no idea,” Hux replies, looking even paler, if such a thing was possible.

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, softly, sounding more like Ben than he has in years. A flush rises on his cheeks, He feels ashamed. If Hux laughs at him he’ll strike him down where he stands.

Hux doesn’t laugh. He just shakes his head and looks confused. “Don’t be.”

His stomach choses this moment to growl even louder than before. The noise seems to shake Hux out of his fugue, because he blinks and gestures ahead of them, towards the settlement. “Shall we?”

He nods and starts off, pausing after a moment to wait for Hux to catch up. Not sure of why he’s doing it he doesn’t let the other man trail him this time, making sure they walk side by side, extending his awareness out a little to guard the both of them in case of sudden attack. Hux feels strangely natural there, blanketed in his Force awareness.

The little creatures at the settlement chatter with pleasure at their arrival, darting over towards them, towards Hux he quickly realises, as they begin to slow and look at him warily when he gets too close. He cannot believe that Hux has somehow endeared himself to these non-human beings, but the evidence is right before his eyes.

He watches, bemused, as Hux starts negotiating with them for stew which they seem perfectly happy to give the redhead, and a little less happy to share with him. Eventually Hux talks two wooden bowls of the stuff out of them, handing one carefully over to him. Their fingers brush in the exchange. He can feel his face heat. Hux also seems to be blushing, though he cannot understand why. 

“Do you want to sit and watch the waves while we eat?” the redhead asks, before freezing, dread coming over his features. A brush over his mind says that Hux feels he’s overstepped his bounds, doesn’t even know why he asked Kylo to join him in the first place, that the redhead feels like an idiot and is braced for violence. 

“Ok,” he replies. Guilt thick and unwanted in his throat. He lets Hux lead him to a rock with a majestic view out onto the open sea, tossing and heaving against the rocks of the island. The stew is odd, not exactly to his taste, but he enjoys the feel of meat between his teeth. Hux seems to enjoy it well enough, though he eats slowly and doesn’t finish his bowl. They eat in silence. Hux’s eyes out to sea, watching the water and the animal life. His eyes keep darting to Hux, to his pretty face, to the copper hair blowing loose in the breeze.


	10. Chapter 10

After eating the Supreme Leader decides to poke through the little dwellings of the settlement. This leaves Hux with nothing to do as Kylo Ren doesn’t do anything more to invite his company. He feels odd. Shaky. 

When he closes his eyes he can see his father, twisting and convulsing on the floor at the foot of Snoke’s throne. 

He hadn’t lied when he told Kylo Ren that he didn’t know why the old Supreme Leader had killed the Commandant, in fact he barely remembered anything more than his father’s long, drawn out death and the way Snoke had talked to him after, conversational, sharing tidbits of wisdom about the Force. It hadn’t been horror, or just horror, that took his memories from him. He had been rather concussed at the time, barely out of the bacta tank after his father’s most recent, savage beating.

Brendol had been angry about the Stormtrooper program. Angry because Snoke had put Hux in charge of acquiring more children, and instead of his father’s preferred method of stealing them from families that were part of the New Republic, a way for the Commandant to spit in the eye of everything that offended him, Hux had been raiding Outer Rim worlds. 

There were so many orphans, slaves, and children of parents that would sell them for a handful of credits or a bottle of drink or a couple of stims or a box of rationbars that the program had swelled; doubling, tripling, quadrupling in size after every mission. The Commandant had been furious. He’d seen it as his son contaminating everything he worked for, filling the ranks with scum, with beggars, whores and thieves instead of good, upstanding citizens that would do the First Order proud. Hux had seen children with no place safe to go, whose gratitude would underpin the Stormtrooper program and breed loyalty where the ghost of a memory of forgotten parents, parents who loved them, would not. Furthermore the cost of raiding Core worlds, of taking children from loving homes (and Brendol always made sure that the children he took were from places where they’d be _missed._ ), was exorbitant in comparison to the cost of taking children from the Outer Rim, even when they had to buy them from parents or slavers. He’d never even finished explaining his rationale to his father. He can still remember blacking out with the Commandant’s hands around his throat. 

If there was any conversation, any reason that Snoke gave for what he did, Hux doesn’t remember it. He will _never_ forget the way his father died. His feelings about the Commandant are beyond that which he can cope with; ever since then they’ve been locked up in a box in the back of his mind. He still doesn’t know if he misses his father, if he loved him. He can’t help knowing that the man terrified him. 

He never wants to see another person, no matter who they are, die like the Commandant did. Not even after all he’d done. Not even after what happened to his mother. He’s sure the way he feels isn’t right, sure that at some point or another he felt pleasure, satisfaction in what Snoke had done. Gratitude even.

Snoke had fucked him after, on the throne, and all he’d been able to see was his father’s twisted corpse at their feet. Then he can remember sitting on Snoke’s lap, body sore, head swimming, being petted as the man talked, little arcs of power flashing from fingertip to fingertip to illustrate his points. He doesn’t like Force Lightening. 

The creatures come and chatter to him where he sits, still on the rock where he ate with the Supreme Leader. He wasn’t sure why he’d done that, suggested the stew and then sat with Kylo Ren. When he was silent, benign, not attacking anything it is almost reassuring to sit with the other man. Kylo Ren is large, he runs hot, his warmth had seeped out and into Hux like the sunlight earlier. For a while under Snoke they were equals, as close as he’s come in his entire life. Not anymore. 

He had smelt of sweat, dirt, something like old blood. There was that other scent, like but not like Snoke’s, like metal, like lightning, like the storms on Arkanis when he was a child, standing beneath the open sky with his mother. Power. The Force. It must be.

A warm, squirming weight is suddenly deposited in his lap. He starts, looks up. One of the little animals, a juvenile he thinks, and dumped there by one of the creatures. She churrs at him, mimicking petting, and when he strokes the little thing she makes a huff of satisfaction. 

His eyes go to the water, to the sea up ahead, greyer than the seas of Arkanis. The waves sound like the beat of a giant’s heart. He lets his mind empty of all but the sound, the feeling of the little animal on his lap, the warmth of the sun on his face.

Suddenly he’s cold. His breath catches in his lungs. He exhales frost. The world is dark, cold, full of shadows. Shadows coming for him. He blinks. The world is light again. The animal is shivering on his lap. 

He can feel something, or maybe hear something. A buzz. A high-pitched hum like a Dreadnought’s engines. He looks around. The creatures have all frozen, their eyes on one of the dwellings. The one where he found the personal effects earlier.

Slowly he gets to his feet, releasing the little animal so it can flap off squawking. Eyes on the dwelling he moves closer, ignoring the creatures as they reach out to catch him. The door is slit open. He rests his palm against it for a breath, for two, then pushes it open.

Kylo Ren kneels in the centre of the dwelling, hunched in on himself. He looks like a giant bird, a big black crow. His hair hangs over his downcast face. Clenched in his large hands are the robes from earlier. Slowly the man’s head raises, eyes black as pitch meeting his own. He feels something rush through him, filling his head with noise that isn’t a noise, with buzzing, with pressure. The Force.

Kylo Ren blinks. The connection severs.

Hux notices the tears cutting tracks through the grime on the other man’s cheeks. His eyes dart to the robes, back to the other man’s face. _Luke Skywalker’s_ robes. Kylo Ren’s uncle. This is where he must have been living.

He doesn’t know what to do. 

Suddenly he’s being pushed backwards, forced from the room by something he can’t see. The door _slams_ in his face and he finds himself gasping for air, slumping to rest his head against its cool surface. 

The reality that he could have died, that Kylo Ren could have killed him, might still kill him, for witnessing what he just did rises in his head and makes him shudder. He thinks of his father. He thinks of Snoke. He thinks of the Force arcing through the man who sired him, burning away his lifeforce. He backs away from the dwelling, slowly and then faster, until he finds himself turning and sprinting back towards the shuttle. Running for his life.

He pounds up the ramp and slams inside, ignoring the squeak and flash of unclad bodies in favour of rushing to the bedroom he’s claimed and sealing the door behind him. He backs away from it, eyes darting around the small room. There’s nowhere to hide. Nothing more than a good sized berth and a wardrobe so miniscule that he couldn’t squeeze into it unless he miraculously found himself twelve years old once more. 

The corner will have to do. He wraps his greatcoat around himself once more and huddles there, ignoring the worries queries of Mitaka and Stormtroopers as they filter through the door to echo around the room.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure I'll have as much time for writing starting from tomorrow, but if inspiration sticks around I'll do my best. Thanks to everyone reading, leaving kudos and, especially, commenting. If it wasn't for you I'm not sure I would this story would have made it this far.

The moment he’d entered the dwelling he’d known this was where Luke had been living. His presence still echoed in the Force, but it was not that that made him hesitate, made his body feel cold and heavy, limbs like lead. 

It smelt like him, the whole room smelt like Luke. Suddenly he was a child again. A child being hoisted onto his uncle’s shoulders, levitated with the Force while he giggled, walking down streets and through gardens with Luke’s sure hand in his own, pressing into his side while Luke read to him, both of them marvelling at little animals scurrying round the temple, the sound of Luke humming to himself as they did chores together, watching entranced as Luke guided him through his first lessons in the Force, feeling those same sure hands correct his grip on his lightsabre, sitting cross-legged in the temple with the other students as Luke led them in meditation, Luke looming over him with his lightsabre ignited. His heart is breaking in his chest.

Luke’s robes are clenched in his hands before he realises it, the scent wafting even stronger from the unwashed cloth. He can remember being loved. He can remember loving. Luke was almost as much a parent as his mother and father. _Why had Luke betrayed him?_

Jealousy, that’s what Snoke had insisted. 

_**No!**_

Everything empties. The world disappears around him. All he can feel is the fabric, rough, homespun, between his fingers, all he can smell, taste, is Luke, Luke all around him, Luke embracing him like when he was a child, Luke in the Force, Luke fighting him fighting for him. He can almost hear his uncle’s voice, not tired like that last time, but young, strong. Trying to tell him something.

The door opens. A brightness, a warmth in the Force enters the room. Little more than an ember, but _growing._ He looks up. Hux.

Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux Hux 

Something shudders inside of him. Something, a remnant, something old and more dead than not. Something contemptuous, cruel. The fragment of a bond. Of another mind.

Violence rises in him, a rejection of what’s happening. The Dark Side swells. He prepares to lash out. 

_**”Ben! No!”**_

_Luke?_

Instead of smiting Hux where he stands he finds himself pushing the other man out of the dwelling, shutting the door in his face. Shutting himself in. Shutting away the danger.

After that he loses time. 

When he finally drags himself off the ground and lets Luke’s robes fall it’s dark outside. Hux is gone. He walks back to the shuttle in a daze. It appears empty. Faint signatures in the Force tell him Hux is in one of the bedrooms, the officer and Stormtroopers are in the crew berthroom. The whole shuttle vibrates with fear and unease. He’s too tired to deal with it. He makes his way to the other bedroom and collapses fully dressed, face down, on the berth. He sleeps. 

He doesn’t dream of Hux.

He dreams he is Snoke. He dreams in gold and red, in surety. Before him billion of lives stretch out to be snuffed on a whim. He reaches down, down inside himself and feels the bonds he’s woven, mind to mind, to twist thoughts and change the future. To bring _his_ future into being. 

He wakes and feels empty.

When he leaves the bedroom he finds the two Stormtroopers and the little officer clustered together in the main cabin. The Stormtroopers have their helmets off. It’s almost a shock to be reminded that they’re real people.

“Rationbar? Sir?” The officer asks, nervous, hands fluttering towards the uneaten bar on the table before him. Both Stormtroopers shift, hands twitching for their blasters. A brush across their mind says they’re afraid for the officer, that they feel affection for him. He yanks his mind away when images in the dark-skinned woman’s mind suggest exactly _how much_ they care for him. 

He wonders if Hux knows his little officer is letting himself be used like that by his troops. 

“No,” he replies, waving away the offer. He’d rather persuade the creatures to let him have some more stew, or perhaps go hunting. The little winged animals look like they’d be good eating. “Where is General Hux?”

The Stormtroopers glance at each other. The brunet officer swallows audibly. “He left. Um. Earlier. Sir.”

“Left?” 

“Yes Sir,” the male Stormtrooper answers for the officer. “He returned to the settlement. He said to tell you that if you asked his whereabouts.” The man is of height with him, broad shouldered, square jawed, good looking in a way that makes him itch to obliterate it. Good looking in a way he, himself, has never managed. Dark, almond shaped eyes meet his. The man’s mind is calm on the surface, but terror flows beneath. Terror and excitement at the possibility of violence. The terror is enough to calm his need to kill.

“I see. Have we had any communication from the rest of the Fleet?” 

“No Sir,” the female Stormtrooper answers. She looks familiar, but he can’t place it. There’s something about the set of her jaw, the line of her nose, the expression in her eyes. Something, someone he’s seen, but not closely. 

He nods, dismisses them with the action, and leaves the shuttle, ignoring the relief that rises in his wake. 

Hux is not at the settlement. That much quickly becomes obvious. He tries demanding the creatures tell him where the redhead is, but they just shake their heads and chatter, either not understanding him or pretending they don’t. Frustrated he reaches out with the Force, ignoring their lifesigns, and focusses on Hux.

He finds him easily, nearby, but further down the island, at level with the water. Stomping off he avoids muttering to himself. He doesn’t even know why he wants to find the other man, he could just go off, go explore those other Force signatures, and let Hux do whatever stupid thing he’s doing. He’s probably not trying to run away. He’d have to take the shuttle.

It takes a moment to spot Hux and when he does it takes another moment for his mind to process what he’s seeing. The man has stripped to his shirtsleeves and is lying on his belly on the steep, rocky shore, half hanging over the water, one arm raised, and staring into its depths. Two of the creatures are nearby, chattering to each other, a woven basket at their feet.

A flash of movement and Hux’s hand lances into the water, pulling back wrapped around the silvery body of a large fish. The same movement slams the fish’s head into a rock, stunning it, before Hux flicks it into the basket and returns to his waiting pose. 

As he gets closer Kylo Ren can see there are already two more fish, lying dead and oozing blood, in the basket. Hux is fishing. Hux is fishing with his bare hands. The sight is thoroughly incongruous.

Another flash of movement, another fish caught, killed and deposited with its fellows. The sea water has soaked into the sleeves of Hux’s rolled up shirt, splashed over his torso, turning the white cloth transparent. He can see Hux’s vest. If Hux was on his back he could possibly even see a faint pinkness indicating his nipples.

He must step wrong because a rock skitters underfoot and he almost trips. Hux sits up with alarm. They make eye contact. Kylo Ren can feel a blush on his cheeks. There is some comfort in the fact that Hux is turning pink.

The redhead pushes himself easily to his feet, moving with an odd kind of grace, something less repressed than he’s used to seeing from the other man. “Supreme Leader,” Hux acknowledges with a nod.

“Hux,” he nods back.

Hux glances at the basket, at the fish, back at him. “Have you eaten? The creatures are making some kind of breakfast soup if you want some.”

“I could eat,” he replies. 

They walk side by side back to the settlement, the two creatures carrying the fish up ahead still chattering to each other. Neither of them mentions the last time they met, the afternoon before, what Hux saw, the violence that he’d almost inflicted on the redhead. It is as if nothing ever happened. It is better that way.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a touch of writer's block. I hope that it will resolve itself soon. Fond wishes for you all.

The soup is delicious. Clear and salty, with thick strips of seaweed and small chunks of fresh fish floating in it. The creatures serve it up with some kind of flatbread made out of the white root vegetable from the stew. 

The Supreme Leader seems less pleased with the food, poking at the chewy strips of green and red seaweed with his spoon and a sour look on his face. Hux, who has lived more years than he wishes to remember on spaceships and planets far away from the place he was born, eating rationbars to avoid food far removed from that of his early childhood, finds it almost amusing. Kylo Ren grimacing at tasty seaweed the way he grimaced whenever his father expected him to sit at table and eat red meat in heavy cream sauce. 

One of the creatures approaches holding a bowl of greenish milk. He wrinkles his nose, but she makes a churr of reassurance and offers it to Kylo Ren without even waving it in his direction. The dark haired man accepts it easily, gulping it all down and handing the bowl back in moments. She makes a noise of query and Kylo Ren huffs, handing over his mostly full bowl of soup when she reaches out a hand. He looks from one to the other, wondering when they reached this truce and how they’re managing to communicate so clearly.

“The Force,” the dark haired man answers his unspoken question. “The creatures here are Force sensitive enough that I can project my thoughts to them without having to enter their minds. She’s getting me some more flatbread.”

He mulls over that information, slowly chewing a piece of seaweed. “I don’t know much about the Force. Only things Snoke told me.”

Kylo Ren’s dark gaze fixes his, “It is in everything, all things living and not, all around us.” The Supreme Leader’s voice is calm, almost wise. “In you and in me.”

“Yet you can use it and I cannot,” he says, eyes darting away from the other man’s and back to his soup.

“No one knows why that is. Not Snoke. Not even Luke Skywalker,” a grimace passes over the dark haired man’s face at the latter name. “It just is.”

“What’s it like?” he finds himself asking.

“Using the Force?” Kylo Ren’s gaze goes distant. He is silent for a long while, before he shakes his head, dark hair whipping around his face in lank, slightly grimy strands. “Indescribable. Depending if you reach for the Light Side or the Dark Side it can be warm and comforting or cold and cruel. It can flow through you as natural as your own blood or tear through you like a storm. It can feel as easy as breathing or like the hardest thing you can ever do. It can be pleasure, it can be pain, it’s…” He trails off.

Hux frowns “Is it always like that? One side or the other? What happens if you reach for both?”

Kylo Ren opens his mouth as if about to say something but closes it again. Frowns. 

The creature returns with a plate piled high with flatbread and thick slices of fish, freshly roasted and smelling wonderful. She hands it to the Supreme Leader with a gesture at Hux and an authoritive squawk. “She wants you to have some of the fish,” the dark haired man says. “She thinks you’re too thin.”

It does smell good. “You don’t mind sharing?”

“Here,” Kylo Ren takes a couple of pieces of fish, wraps them in a flatbread and hands them over.

He bites into it. Hot juices burst on his tongue. The creatures had been considerate enough to cut the fish away from its thick little bones, but he almost wishes they hadn’t. 

He can remember sitting by the water with his grandmother during the two, miraculous, months his father had been off world, as she taught him to fish. He’d mimicked her sure movements, reaching out with his mind as she’d instructed, feeling almost as if he was becoming his prey in the moments before he’d scooped them from the water and given them a quick, merciful death against the rocks. 

She had slit open their bellies, taught him how to gut and scale them, and cooked them over the fire. The bones had crunched between their hard, sharp teeth, his inherited anatomy adapted to gain vital calcium in such a way on a world with no traditional source of dairy. His father would have beaten him, reconditioned him, killed his grandmother if he ever found out. She had known this, but said the risk was worth it. It was worth it to give him some sense of who he really was. 

_“Be who he wants when he can see it my boy, let yourself have two minds so one of you can be the son he’s making you, but keep the other one safe. One day you’ll be free.”_

He loses his appetite before he can finish the parcel of fish and bread. “You’re done?” the Supreme Leader asks, looking at the half finished meal he’s holding awkwardly. He nods. A shrug and Kylo Ren is taking the food from his hands and finishing it off himself, mouth where his was only moments before.

He blushes, looks away. It feels oddly intimate.

In the night, between fitful dreams huddled in the corner of his room, he’d concluded that his life has always been full of powerful, terrifying men. His father, Snoke; Kylo Ren is no different. He can survive this, he has done so before, it isn’t so bad. Kylo Ren isn’t so bad. 

“There is a Force signature I want to explore,” the man says, picking the last crumbs of flatbread off the plate and licking them off his fingers. Completely ignoring the little animals that have flapped over and are begging at their feet. “Over there,” he nods to a place partway up the island.

The closeness he wasn’t even aware of feeling towards the other man vanishes. “Shall I remain at the settlement- Sir?”

“I want you with me,” the dark-haired man says, surprising him. He nods. 

This day is looking to be as hot as the last so he doesn’t bother returning to the dwelling the creatures let him use for his coat and greatcoat. He wonders a little at how Kylo Ren can stand it, still walking about swathed in heavy black fabric. The other man obviously hasn’t washed in the four days they’ve been here, unlike himself who has bathed every morning at the shuttle. His smell is getting stronger, heavy with old sweat, he smells like a _man_ which is odd and strangely confronting. 

Snoke had always smelt of the most expensive perfumes, resins and oils and extracts harvested from rare and expensive things to smear across knotted, scarred skin. He, himself, has always kept clean, and like his mother’s people has little natural odour. His father would bathe twice a day, denying vehemently that it was an indulgent luxury. His father’s wife wore flowery perfume. His mother smelt of the kitchens. His grandmother smelt of herbs and the water. The Stormtroopers are trained to keep good hygiene, the officers are compelled to, the High Command, when he’s met them, tend to be like Snoke. Smeared in scents that display their wealth. Kylo Ren has always been different. Different to any part of what he has truly considered to be his life. 

He feels odd. Too aware of Kylo Ren, and not just out of fear.

The smell of smoke rises to cover the smell of the other man the closer they get to their destination. It becomes harder to see, the smoke lingering mixed with a strange mist. He finds himself edging closer to his companion. Kylo Ren looks determined, a crooked set to his full mouth.

A new oddness comes over him. It feels like buzzing. Like something just too high-pitched to hear. His lips, his nose, his teeth feel slightly numb.

_There’s a tree, part of a tree, a whole tree, a sapling, a burnt husk, a seed, leaves full, leaves falling, leaves budding, growing growing dying, a tree, a tree, a memory of a tree._ He blinks. 

There’s the remains of a tree, old, dead or dying before it was recently burnt. A huge thing. It makes his head swirl.

Now that they’re closer he can smell something else under the smoke, a perfume, familiar though acrid from too much heat. A smell like that of the wood of Snoke’s headboard. He reaches out a hand, fingers almost touching the charred remains.

“There’s nothing here!” Kylo Ren’s shouting drags him back to himself. The other man begins to pace back and forth, fuming. 

He backs away from the tree, averting his gaze, trying to both give the Supreme Leader privacy and avoid drawing attention to himself. While Kylo Ren snarls to himself he walks around the clearing. There’s something niggling at him, something- he feels so odd. His head feels full, like it might just explode. 

There’s a rock. A little rock. A little rock sitting on a patch of ground. His eyes keep going to the rock. To the ground. His eye sockets feel like they’re rattling. He has to sit down. 

He sits down by the rock. His fingers start digging in the ground before he even knows he’s moving. It shifts easily, almost peeling away. There’s something there. There’s a box. There’s a wooden box. 

In the background he can hear Kylo Ren stop kicking the remains of the tree. 

He pulls the box from the earth and unlatches it. Inside-

“What are you-?” a hand, larger than his own, reaches into the box and closes around the thing. He watches Kylo Ren cradle the metal object, an unreadable expression on his face. The other man shifts his grip on it, holding it like the hilt of a sword. His thumb presses something on the side. Green light extends from the object’s tip. “Luke’s lightsabre.”

A blink. _He has the impression of an endless stream of little figures walking, fighting, dying._ A blink.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure about this chapter. I'm posting it anyway in the hope I won't come to regret it.

“There’s nothing here!” Nothing more than the burnt out old husk of a tree. What a waste of time. Nothing even to show Hux. Kylo Ren is beginning to doubt this entire mission. They should never have come here. Why did he come here? Chasing shadows, chasing the past. He’d killed his past. 

He feels heartsick.

Everything is just ash and smoke like this bloody tree. 

He has to move. He has to, he starts pacing, energy, frustration building up in him. He tries reaching out through the Force but he only feels echoes. There was something here. He knows there was something here. It’s like a memory. A memory he’s trying to recover through a concussion.

Has he been here before? He thinks he has, but then he thinks he hasn’t. Rey’s been here. Maybe that’s it. Maybe when Snoke linked their minds he inherited something from hers. 

He reaches for her, instinctive. The wall between them is just as solid as when she shut him out. 

His temper frays beyond bearing. The tree thuds beneath his boot. Ash shakes free. He does it again, kicking and kicking, frustration strangling him like it so often has before. He loses track of time. He loses track of Hux. 

A warmth. No, not warmth, light. No. No. Something. Something in the Force. A focus point. 

His raised foot drops back to the earth. He stumbles a little, regaining his balance. Slowly he turns around, reaching out, sensing- Hux is down on the ground, sitting near a hole. He’s got something on his lap. A box. An open box.

Kylo Ren walks over, eyes on whatever Hux has found. It feels familiar. “What are you-?” _holding_ he means to ask. He doesn’t have to. He knows what that is. He reaches for it, cradling it in his hand, feeling the where Hux’s body heat has seeped into the metal. “Luke’s lightsabre.” This is the first lightsabre he ever used, when Luke put it into his hands and guided him through his first lesson. 

He ignites it. The blade is still as pure and green as it ever was. 

“How did you find it?” 

Hux doesn’t answer. When he finally tears his eyes away from the blade he finds the redhead staring at it much as he must have been. The light reflects on Hux’s pale skin, in his pale eyes. He extinguishes the blade. Hux blinks, seems to shake himself out of his fugue. He tries again. “How did you find it?”

“I, I,” Hux blinks again, eyes going from the hilt in his hand to the hole in the ground. “I don’t know. It was just, it was there. I suppose I must have seen some sign that something was buried here.”

“Buried,” he whispers. His eyes go back to the box still in Hux’s lap. He bends down, lifts it with the hand not holding the lightsaber. Plain. Wooden. A coffin. He drops it at their feet.

Did Luke bury himself, the part of himself that was a Jedi, with his lightsaber?

Suddenly his hand aches for his own lightsabre. His _first_ lightsabre. His grandfather’s lightsabre. The one he’d left, discarded, in the ruins of Luke’s temple. The one Rey had used to carve up his flesh like Luke, like Snoke carved up his mind. The one she had brought to him. The one he used to slay the old Supreme Leader. The one they had split in two. 

The thing at his waist. The thing Snoke had guided him in building. The thing that had seemed like such a triumph feels heavy and unnatural. Luke had never taught him to build one, seemed to think he should be content with hand-me-downs. It used to make him so angry.

His hand is shaking where it’s curled around the hilt. 

A long, narrow hand closes over his. Gently Hux extracts the lightsabre from his grasp and puts it back in its box, closing the lid and latching it tight. 

He sucks in a gasp. Another. Hux’s eyes are on him. In his mind the redhead’s gaze is as green as the lightsabre. His face is wet. He wants his mother. He wants to be a little boy again, hiding his face in her skirts.

“I need to meditate,” he gasps, eyes wheeling around the clearing. He can’t. Not here. Not with the remains of that tree watching him. “I need to-” He can’t breathe.

Everything goes dark.

**The city is empty. It doesn’t feel abandoned, it’s simply as if everyone has suddenly vanished. The air smells like sweet water, like plants, like sun on stone and brick. He walks down the street near the river and his footsteps echo.**

**The buildings are mainly round, topped with green copper. Beautiful. He can hear water rushing in the distance, falling. The sound is very different from the thud thud thud of waves against the island.**

**Everything seems so warm, so lovely, so peaceful. His world has become so dominated with black and red and grey, and here things are cream and copper and golden.**

**Vines creep over balconies, heavy with flowers. He can almost see insects and small birds buzzing around, feeding, but there’s no sentient life here.**

**He keeps walking, walking. He passes through buildings, lined with stone, with tall windows. Smaller houses. Palaces. Public places. Eventually he finds himself on a balcony, looking out over the blue blue water.**

**“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice behind him. He turns. A brunet lurks part in the shadows, as he watches the man steps out into the light. He’s tall, handsome but a little petulant looking, with a scar bisecting his eyebrow. His brown hair brushes his shoulders. He wears kaf coloured robes.**

**“Yes,” Kylo Ren replies. “Where is this place?”**

**“Home,” the man shrugs, looks rueful. “Well, as close to home as I ever came.”**

**“Who are you?” he feels like he should know, but the answer won’t come to mind.**

**“It doesn’t matter,” the man says. “No one. A dead man. A fool.”**

**He frowns. “Then why am I here?”**

**The man shrugs, stepping up beside him to look out over the water. “You know, I don’t actually know.” Irritation rises in him and with it the temptation to lash out. The man tsks, “You need to learn to control that temper. I speak from personal experience.”**

**“My anger makes me strong!” he snarls.**

**“Does it?” the man looks at him, dark eyes unreadable. “Is that what your teacher told you?”**

**His fist slams against the carved stone of the balcony, “What gives you the _right_ to question me?” **

**“ _Everything!_ Everything gives me the right!” the man’s eyes pin his, anger, then anger fading, then sorrow. “What have you done, Ben?”**

**“My name is Kylo Ren,” he snaps.**

**“Is it?” the man asks. “Is that who you are?”**

**“Yes!” he insists. “Why do you even know that name?”**

**A smirk. “Why wouldn’t I?”**

**“Don’t be cryptic,” he snarls.**

**“Why not?” the man gestures around them, at the city, at the water. “Look where we are. What do you think is happening?”**

**“If this is a Force vision I am leaving,” he turns to walk away, the scene shifts, rotates, he is back facing the water. Anger flares hotter. “What did you do?”**

**A pause. Quiet words. “So many things that I regret.”**

**He holds tight to his anger, fighting the way it starts to drain. The man looks sorrowful, tired beyond his years. His eyes are downcast, his hands fists at his side. Without looking up the man speaks again, “The path you’ve taken will see you here one day. You are making your own punishment.”**

**He looks around, glances at the water, the buildings, the plants, the beauty. “It looks unbearable.”**

**“It is,” the man says, simply.**

**“Enough!” he snaps, reaching out for the Force, trying to wake up. The world shimmers, going dark at the edges.**

**“Ben!” the man shouts. Suddenly he’s right in front of him, strong hands closing around his wrists. The brunet gives him a shake. His grip of the Force slips. “Listen to me. There are so many things I want to tell you, but I know it’s not time yet. You won’t understand.”**

**“What do you mean?” he tries to break the man’s grasp, but he can’t. He feels so weak.**

**The man has his eyes squeezed shut, he seems to be warring with himself. “If I tell you the wrong thing I risk changing your future, sending you haring off down the wrong path, desperate to avoid a fate that your own actions are making for you.”**

**“I don’t understand,” he breathes into the air between them.**

**“There are some things you’re not ready to hear yet, there are some things I must not tell you, and there are some things you have to discover for yourself.” The man’s eyes open. They are familiar, but he can’t place them.**

**Somehow he manages to break free of the man’s grip. As he does the world wobbles, for a moment he’s back on the island, in the clearing, beneath the tree. Except it’s not the burnt husk, it is young and healthy and in full leaf. Then he’s back in front of the man.**

**“Ah, your time here is running out.” The brunet sighs, “Soon you’ll be gone and I will remain, or I will return to the Force and let it soothe my regrets, until once more they become too much to bear. Let me at least achieve something.”**

**“I don’t understand,” he’s repeating himself. He feels stuck. The air seems thick, choking, it smells of smoke.**

**“You understand so little.”**

**He bristles at the idea, the contempt behind the idea. He’s too used to being talked down to, treated as if he can’t even think for himself. His mother. His father. Luke. Snoke. “Don’t speak to me as if I’m a child!”**

**“No. You are not a child,” the man snaps at him, then suddenly he smiles. It is not a happy smile. “You are a grown man. That is worse.”**

**The world shakes again. He can feel something, a warmth. Something like safety nearby. The smell of smoke, thick, slightly sweet, gets thicker. He can’t think, he can barely hear.**

**“I do not know if we’ll meet again Ben Solo,” the man is saying as the world starts to fade. “I do not know if this is the right thing to do. Listen though, listen and think. Learn. Answer. What is the Force? What is the Dark Side? What is the Light Side? What are the Jedi? What are the Sith? What is your place in all of it?”**

He wakes lying on the floor of the clearing, his head pillowed on Hux’s lap. The other man is staring into the distance, long fingers absent-mindedly petting his dark hair. The box is on the ground beside them.

He sucks in a breath, catching Hux’s gaze when the redhead glances down at him, before turning to bury his face against the other man’s belly. He has no idea what he’s doing. Hux’s warmth soaks into him.

The vision lingers.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick question for anyone who feels like answering: Do you think this fic needs a new summary? 
> 
> Slightly more elaborated question- I'm bad at summaries, like I am at titles, and never known how much to give away and how much to conceal. Furthermore I didn't really know where this fic was heading at the beginning. So do you feel the summary adequately matches the fic it's attached to, or do you think it could be improved?

The Supreme Leader collapses like a puppet with its strings cut. One moment the man is all energy, all frantic fear, tears streaming down his face, then he is still. For a moment Hux fears he’s been struck down dead. No. His chest rises, falls. He breathes.

Hux has no idea what to do. There’s no possible way he can carry Kylo Ren back to the settlement, the man is probably twice his weight, tall and cumbersome. He could return to the shuttle and fetch the Stormtroopers and Mitaka, or if he was wise and had a comm on him summon them forth, but he cannot imagine the Supreme Leader thanking him for revealing weakness to their subordinates. 

If the other man wakes up. No. He will. This is something else. Either something psychological or something to do with the Force. He has seen Snoke meditate, not often, but a few times late at night when the old Supreme Leader hadn’t dismissed him from his chambers after they were done. Snoke’s still form felt something like this, though there was still something wary, an energy raised in protection, around the older man that is missing here.

He could kill Kylo Ren, use his blaster or take one of the lightsabres and slay him where he lies. He does not think the man will wake this time and defend himself. He makes no move towards any weapon. He does not want to kill him. Instead he sinks to his knees beside the other man, placing the box beside him, before doing his best to pull Ren’s body out of the uncomfortable looking tangle it has fallen into.

He’s not sure how it happens, but one moment he’s straightening out one of Kylo Ren’s legs and the next moment he’s sitting with the man’s heavy head on his lap. His fingers find their way to the man’s tangle of dark hair, combing through and easing some of the knots forming.

The last person he was this close to was Snoke, but still it doesn’t feel the same. Snoke never let his guard down, never laid in his arms unguarded, never would have let him stroke his hand over the man’s bare scalp. He can remember waking, mind bleary, and wanting to reach out, wanting to sooth the older man’s old wounds. He doesn’t know why. He does know Snoke would laugh at him, strike him for the impertinence.

Kylo Ren is odd looking, he can’t deny it. The man’s features are too much, too heavy, too distinct. His nose is big as is his mouth. He never seems comfortable in his own skin. 

That dark hair is soft beneath his fingers, even gummed as it is in sweat and dirt. It is so strange to touch someone like this.

He can remember lying in his mother’s lap as a child, in his grandmother’s. Their people were physically affectionate, but not where Imperial eyes could see. If his father ever saw anyone touch him softly he would be beaten. If his father ever saw his mother touch him softly he would beat her in front of him first. 

The scent of the man resting in his lap rises around them. It mixes with the smoke, the perfume of the tree. He finds himself thinking about how strong the man is, not just with the Force, but the strength in his heavy, muscled limbs. His hands are so big, bigger than Snoke’s, and rough with calluses. For a moment he wants to tangle their fingers. He doesn’t know what’s come over him.

He breathes deep, trying to clear his mind on the exhale. He lets himself live in the moment, the sound of Kylo Ren’s breathing, the sun filtering through the mist on his face, the still air, the smell of smoke and not of man.

Kylo Ren lets out a huff of breath, twitches. Glancing down he meets dark eyes. They blink at him, dazed, before the man turns over with a heave of movement and buries his face against Hux’s stomach. He freezes. His skin erupts in a pricking sensation. He can feel Kylo Ren’s nose nuzzling against the fabric of his shirt.

They stay like that for a long while. He begins to relax, his hand returns unconsciously to stroke through the other man’s hair. Kylo Ren doesn’t shrug him off.

Eventually the man speaks. “Let’s return to the shuttle, I need to sleep.” 

“Ok,” he replies, waiting for the other man to get up. He doesn’t, instead he seems to press his face closer. Hux waits. Kylo Ren sucks in a deep breath and eventually pushes away, climbing awkwardly to his feet. The man reaches down a hand. He stares at it. Carefully he reaches up and takes it, skin to skin, and lets Kylo Ren pull him to his feet. He barely has to help, the other man is strong enough to lift him without even using the Force.

The box sits at their feet. Not knowing why he bends and picks it up. Surely Kylo Ren should be the one carrying it, but the other man makes no move to take it from him. 

They walk back down the island in silence. The other man seems strangely distant, as if his mind is not really there. He finds he doesn’t mind. It has become late afternoon, though he is not sure where the day has gone. Time must have passed while the other man was unconscious.

There is no sign of Mitaka when they return to the shuttle. The Stormtroopers start guiltily from where they’re standing drinking Kaf, helmets still off, eyes darting towards the crew cabin. FN-2188 shifts as if to move in front of the door, trying to guard it from them. He gets the terrible suspicion that Mitaka is having a lie down, in dereliction of duty, and probably because he’s managed to exhaust himself fraternising. 

He says nothing, simply fetches two rationbars and two bottles of water, handing one of each to Kylo Ren and watching the dark haired man take them and return to his cabin. Himself he sinks into one of the plush chairs, unwrapping the rationbar and longing for fish stew. 

The Stormtroopers shift from foot to foot, little spasms of movement towards the crew cabin. They want to return to Mitaka. He doesn’t ever want to have to deal with this. He raises a hand and dismisses them, not making eye contact as they scurry away.

His father must be turning in his grave.

He eats, feeling unsatisfied, eyes on the darkening sea he can see through the porthole. 

He sleeps well that night, wooden box on the table bolted to the floor beside his berth. He dreams of the waters of Arkanis. Of life growing, dying, being reborn in the silvery water.

The next day is even hotter. He can feel something in the air, some potential, energy gathering. It feels like the time before a storm on Arkanis, when every hair would stand on end, and he’d have to fight his body tooth and nail not to go and stand outside and let it wash over him.

They leave for the settlement early, leaving Stormtroopers and Mitaka still abed. The creatures are as welcoming as ever, feeding Kylo Ren milk and the both of them fish and flatbread. He is a little sorry for the lack of soup, but the fish is as good as it was the day before and the flatbread has a pleasant, nutty taste.

“We are going to the summit,” is all Kylo Ren says when they’ve finished eating. He remembers the island shaking, the place far up above where the creature’s kept looking. Still, he lets the other man lead the way.

Once there Kylo Ren wordlessly steps out onto the outcrop, looking down on the world below. He finds himself lingering in the hollowed out space, the pool of water in the floor catching at his eyes. 

“I’m going to meditate,” the other man says, sitting on the rock waiting on the outcrop. “Stay.”

“Yes Sir,” he says, though he’s not sure the man’s heard him. He watches Kylo Ren breathe in, breathe out. There’s no wind, the world itself feels airless. Nothing else moves. 

Eventually he sits down by the edge of the pool. There is a shape picked out in stone mosaic on the pool’s base. His eyes rove it, his attention drawn to it. It looks like a figure meditating. A figure in black and white, white and black, black and white. All together. All as one. One and the same. 

His breathing evens out. Time passes.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today was not ideal for writing, but here's a chapter. I'm not that happy with it, but posting keeps me writing so here we are. I hope so much that you all enjoy it.

He slept deeply, his dreams no more than faint impressions of comfort, of fingers combing through his hair. The questions from his vision haunt him. He knows the man was trying to tell him something by asking them, but he cannot understand. He needs to do as the man bade him, he needs to _learn._

The summit of the island calls to him. The last Force signature to explore. Of course he brings Hux, even though he still couldn’t explain his rationale if questioned. The other man’s presence barely registers, his attention is too inward focused, but still he needs him around. 

The rock feels warm beneath him. He gets an impression, a momentary sense, of Luke sitting here. A blink and Luke is Rey. A blink and Luke is himself again, younger, as he was the night he left. Sorrow fills him. Luke’s sorrow. He blinks. The sun is almost too warm on his face.

He closes his eyes. Instead of reaching out, trying to channel the Force, he lets himself sense it.

_What is the Force? What is the Dark Side? What is the Light Side?_

The Force exists in and around all things. The Dark Side is the path to power. The Light Side is the path to peace. These are the things he has been told.

He lets his awareness stretch beyond himself, stretch to cover the entire island, from the island to cover this region of the world, from this region of the world he stretches himself further, further, until he can feel the planet. Life pulses, strengthening and fading, strengthening and fading. The Force exists in and around all things.

Carefully he reaches out to feel it. He doesn’t guide it, channel it, draw from the Light or the Dark, he simply lets himself make contact with it. It is complete, whole, not yearning. It needs nothing. Wants nothing. Is nothing, nothing that can be quantified. In it he is nothing. He is everything. He is all.

_Kylo Ren disappears. He is the Force. He is all things._

There is no space for thought, no space for awareness, no space for self. He becomes a conduit, subsumed in the whole.

…

Time passes.

…

A pinprick of something wrong. Something known, something within himself. Panic. Not fear, not yet, but panic. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Running. Hurry, he has to hurry. _Why don’t they have comms on them? Don’t they realise they’re being irresponsible? This damn storm. FN-2188 runs on ahead. FN-2439 runs behind. His body aches inside. If he’d known he’d have to run he wouldn’t have spent the day as he has._

The world is nearly black when Kylo Ren opens his eyes. Wind howls, blowing hair into his face. The first drops of rain, hard, heavy, driving splatter down into his eyes. A crack, a bang, lightning strikes somewhere out to sea.

A storm. They have to get back to the shuttle.

Clambering off the rock he looks around wildly for Hux. The other man can’t have left him here, he won’t believe it. No. There he is, lying on his side by the reflective pool. Fear sparks, he rushes over, but slows as he gets closer. The redhead is asleep. He leans down and gently shakes him.

Hux moans quietly as he wakes. The sound wants to linger in his mind, but he ignores it. “What-?” the redhead mumbles.

“A storm. We’re too exposed up here, we should get back to the shuttle.”

“Ah,” Hux breathes out. “I thought I felt one building.” He gets to his feet, looking out at the near-black world.

“Come on,” he says, leading the way. The rain beats against them, soaking into their clothes. His black wool becomes heavy, sodden. Hux’s white shirt becomes transparent. Now is not the time to pay attention to the latter. 

The redhead is surprisingly sure-footed on the wet, slippery rock. He finds himself scurrying to keep up, driven to use the Force just a little, to help himself keep his footing. 

“What’s that?” Hux shouts over the roaring wind, pointing at something up ahead.

He peers through the rain, blinking. “It’s that officer and those two Stormtroopers.” The three figures are on the path near the shoreline, stumbling up towards the settlement. The last thing he felt before he woke to the storm flashes through his mind. “Something’s happened.”

Without a word they accelerate, climbing down the island as fast as they can manage. Hux is rushing on ahead, never slipping. He looks fierce, beautiful, natural. Like an animal in its own habitat.

They almost reach the three figures, are almost to the point they can shout out and ask what’s happened, when a huge gust of wind rises around them. It seems to catch the officer mid-stride. For a second he seems to float, and then he’s falling, slipping off the edge of the island to land in the water below. 

The Stormtroopers scream, the male lurching as if to follow before the woman catches him. “Bugger,” he hears Hux spit out, and then the redhead is launching himself off the side of the island. 

His body makes a perfect arc, seeming to slice through the air in slow-motion, before slipping into the water below. 

The dark-haired officer has surfaced, is struggling against the waves, moving like a person who has never found themselves in deep water before. He obviously can’t swim. Hux breaks the surface and moves over to him with sure, steady strokes. 

The waves are high, rough, being blown by the wind. As Hux reaches the other man and wraps an arm around him, pulling him back towards the shore, Kylo Ren can almost see it in the Force. They’ll be crushed. Drowned.

Ignoring the cries of the Stormtroopers he reaches out, wrapping the Force around the two and buffering them from the waves. He starts back down towards the shore himself, still cradling the fragile figures. When he’s closer he’ll lift them, pull them near, bring Hux into his arms.

All three of them, himself and the two Stormtroopers reach the shore as one. He concentrates, lifts, the two men begin to raise out of the water. **Something grabs them. Tears them from his grip. Drags them down, down, down, down, down into the water.**

He gasps. They’re gone. He can’t see them, he can’t- He reaches out, feels for Hux…

Finds him. Beneath the island. Near the Dark. Near the mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to thank everyone who has been leaving kudos and comments, they're really appreciated. You're all wonderful.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is shorter than usual, but it seemed like the place to end the chapter. Thanks so much to everyone reading, leaving kudos and commenting. It is very motivating when people like one's writing.

Hux breaks the surface. Gasps. Disorientated. Mitaka bobs up next to him, face down. They are in what seems to be a cave. It’s dark, nearly to the point he can’t see, but what light there is shows him a bank he can pull them onto.

He flips the other man onto his back, wrapping an arm around his unconscious form, and starts to swim. It doesn’t take long, in fact it takes longer to drag Mitaka’s sodden, waterlogged, uncooperative form onto the relatively dry land. 

He leans down, checks the man’s pulse, checks his breathing. Still alive. 

Standing again he looks around. A flash of movement catches his eye. The far wall is a reflective surface, almost like a giant, natural mirror. How odd.

No. No. That’s not what’s odd. He can’t be seeing what he’s seeing.

Slowly, warily, he walks towards it. The figure reflected back at him mimics his every move. It’s him. It looks like him. Same pale, skinny body, red hair, narrow features. But it’s not him. He’s soaking wet, in his shirtsleeves, hair hanging around his face and dripping down his neck. The figure in the mirror is in his full uniform, cap on head and greatcoat over shoulders, not a hair out of place.

He reaches out. It reaches out. Their fingertips brush.

**He is standing in some wretched, grimy place. Kylo Ren’s fault, of course. Behind himself he can see the reflection of Lieutenant Mitaka, a useless lump on the ground. The minute they return to the Finalizer the stupid little man is going to be busted down to Sanitation and those Stormtroopers of his are going for reconditioning.**

**His eyes go to those of the creature reflected in front of him. A pathetic little specimen staring at him in horror. His nose scrunches in disgust at how poorly put together it is, half-dressed and dripping water everywhere. Pitiful.**

**Its mouth keeps opening to say something, its hands are pressed to the impermeable surface between them. Any sound it might be making can’t pass through the barrier between them. He turns, preparing to leave it, but movement behind it stops him. He watches as the Commandant reaches out, grabbing the creature by its neck, by its hair, and starts to drag it away. A touch of delight. It’s going for reconditioning.**

**He wonders what the Commandant has caught it doing this time. Has it been sending coded communiques to Leia Organa again?**

**The creature struggles against the larger redhaired man, it’s fighting, clawing, as the Commandant drags it down a long corridor. He knows that this time the Commandant is going to recondition it again and again until it’s brain is all but mush. It doesn’t matter. It won’t stick.**

**Brendol Hux is a fool. The man refuses to admit that his process won’t work on the creature, that no matter how often he sends it for reconditioning it will always break free.**

**The Commandant is not man enough to tame the creature. It takes more than his faulty process to bring the thing into line. It takes his Master. It takes the Force to pin the reconditioning into place over the squirming animal within.**

**He can feel a breath on the back of his neck. He doesn’t turn to look, but he can feel him there, smell him there. _No. No he can’t, he should but he can’t. Where is he. Where is his Master?_**

**In the mirror the creature elbows the Commandant in the face, claws its way back down the long corridor to the surface that separates them. He wants to laugh. _He wants his Master._ He watches its futile struggling, watches as the Commandant surges up behind it, strikes it. The older man is shouting something, red faced.**

**The creature flails, screaming. It manages to flip onto its back and start kicking, hands going to its head to try and pry the Commandant’s fingers out of its hair. One final kick to Brendol Hux’s face and the Commandant vanishes.**

**The creature clambers to its feet, swaying, more of a mess than before. A thin line of blood trails down from its split lip. It’s staring at him. He looks back in contempt. It moves closer, closer, mouthing something.**

**_“You’re dead. You died with Snoke.”_ **

**It’s reaching out, reaching for him. His hand is back on the surface. He didn’t realise. He starts to pull it back… _it’s too late._ **

Hux blinks. The world around him seems to waver. He blinks. His reflection, _his_ reflection, just as bedraggled as he is, blinks too. 

He’s cold. His eyes roll up in his skull. He falls.

Someone catches him.


	17. Chapter 17

He drags himself out of the water just as the Stormtroopers splash down. The brunet officer is a huddled lump, groaning and struggling to sit up. Hux is standing in front of the mirror swaying slightly. The entire space, here, beneath the island, is icy cold. 

His breath steams out in front of him. The little officer’s does too. Hux’s doesn’t.

He marches past the struggling officer, ignoring the Stormtroopers lurching out of the water and reaching for the little man, and heads straight for Hux. The redhead’s skin is almost blue. His lips look bruised. He looks dead.

The man’s eyes are transfixed by the mirror, but Kylo Ren can’t see anything there. No reflection. No nothing. The surface is flat, matte, opaque. He reaches for Hux. Hux falls. Those pale eyes roll up and he just keels over.

He’s quick enough to catch him, to scoop his light figure into his arms. Hux is so cold his skin almost burns where it they touch. He reaches for him in the Force and feels nothing. No. No a weak flutter, like the heart of a dying bird. 

The settlement. They won’t make it back to the shuttle. He needs to get Hux warm.

The little officer has finally found his feet, stumbling over, large eyes wide with concern. The man’s saying something. It’s not important. He brushes past him, channelling the Force and using it to propel himself up and out of the cave. A niggling thought, something like one of Hux’s reprimands, has him reaching out and lifting the Stormtroopers and the officer out to dump them in a pile on the surface before he starts off for the settlement, Hux still cradled in his arms.

It feels as if the Force radiates out from him, brushing against the world, sensing everything that he passes and helping him navigate. He doesn’t stumble. His feet are sure on the slippery rock. 

The rain is even heavier than before, pounding down in great drenching sheets. He is soaked to the bone, the cold cloth trying to steal his body heat. He draws deeper from the Force, uses it to keep himself warm. He tries to push that warmth into Hux, but the man seems to just absorb it without it making a difference. 

The creatures scurry from their shelters to greet him. He feels their distress when they see Hux’s state. One of them takes over, chattering at him with authority and leading him to a dwelling. Inside he finds a pallet bed with Hux’s coat and greatcoat folded up on top. The creature points emphatically at the bed, the image of him stripping Hux down and folding them both into the blankets projected as strongly as she can into his mind. 

He gets started, struggling with the redhead’s boots, the wet cloth encasing him. Hux is still so cold, colder than the air around them. Frustrated he grabs the cloth of Hux’s trousers and tears them open, not sure if it’s his own strength or the Force that makes the fabric part so easily. He’s pulling wet wool down the redhead’s legs when the door to the dwelling opens and another one of the creatures hurries inside with an old, metal brazier filled with hot coals. 

Through the open door he sees a glimpse of more creatures leading the Stormtroopers and the officer to another dwelling.

Then Hux is down to his underwear, grey cloth clinging to pale skin. He hesitates. The first creature squawks, chiding. She’s right. There’s no time for this. He hooks his large, clumsy fingers in the sodden cloth and drags the small garment down Hux’s legs. 

The second creature leaves again, chittering at the first. She’s going to fetch something. The First creature pushes him away from Hux, sending an image of him stripping out of his own clothes into his mind. She’s thinking about body heat. They need to get Hux warm. He hesitates. She swats at him. He begins to get undressed.

While he’s busy the creature pulls back the covers on the bed and rolls Hux inside, manoeuvring him easily despite their size difference. He hesitates over his own underwear, but when it looks as if the creature is actually going to strike him, he strips the black cloth off and approaches the bed.

Hux is so still. He still looks dead.

Rolling the redhead onto his side he slips in behind on the narrow bed, flinching at the freezing touch of the other man’s flesh. The creature churrs in approval and pulls the blankets over both of them. He lies there, shivering, feeling as if his very blood is being frozen by skin to skin contact.

The creature stokes the brazier, warming the air in the small dwelling. The door opens again, admitting two more creatures, one with arms piled high with driftwood the other with arms piled high with blankets. Somehow the creatures have prevented their loads from getting damp. He wonders if it’s the Force. The first creature gestures for the wood to be put over by the wall, near but not too near the brazier, she then takes the blankets and layers them over the ones already on the bed. 

It feels odd. It should be sexual, laying skin on skin with Hux, but Hux is unconscious and the creatures are making him feel more like a child sick in bed than a grown man with a pretty companion. The door opens again and the creature that brought the brazier returns, carrying a tray with covered bowls. The smell of fish and seaweed begins to fill the dwelling.

The first creature takes the tray from this latest arrival and places it on the floor near the bed, she then turns to the three other creatures in the dwelling and starts shooing them towards the door. One of them churrs in protest, but she squawks and points at the door until they seem to give up, turning to leave as one, trading quiet words in their language as they go.

The creature bends down near them and places a hand on Hux’s brow, tsking. The Force is all that is keeping Kylo Ren from shivering, all that is keeping Hux from leeching all the warmth from his flesh. He keeps feeding it into the other man, reaching out, monitoring his life signs as he does. Hux’s presence flutters, feeling small and far away. 

He is afraid. He doesn’t know what this malady is, all he knows is it must have come from the Mirror. From the Dark. Perhaps, he hesitates, perhaps- the Force he’s been channelling is weighted heavily to the Dark Side out of long habit, not entirely, because he was reaching for the Force as a whole before this happened, but still Snoke’s teachings have him drawing from the Dark from instinct. Perhaps he needs to draw from the Light Side to counteract whatever of the Dark is affecting Hux.

Luke would tell him he must release the Force first. Snoke would too. He doesn’t have the patience. He shifts his focus, reaching for the Light even though he is still drawing from the Dark. He feels the strangest sensation, like his mind readjusting its grip on something it’s already holding. Dark, Light, something in between. For a moment he’s just drawing from the Force, no boundaries, shatteringly _powerful_ , but then things shift once more. The Light fills him. Overflows. Feeds into Hux. The little flutter that is the redhead’s lifeforce strengthens.

Warmth comes rushing back to the other man’s limbs. The colour returns to his face. His lips flush red, alive. 

The Light Side does not demand. It does not overtake. It does not burn as the Dark can. It feels like an old friend, happy to see him again. He finds himself lulled by it, comforted though he does not want to be. Hux’s death-like stillness has eased into peaceful rest and he finds himself being dragged down too, dragged into sleep. It is only the creature poking him to feed him some fish stew that rouses him, and even then only long enough to eat, before he curls himself around Hux and falls into a deep, dreamless sleep, releasing the Force as he slips into rest.

He wakes when the door bangs open. It is light outside, feels like morning. The little officer is standing in the doorway, looking determined, wearing nothing more than wrinkled trousers and a multi-coloured blanket. The two Stormtroopers appear, trying to pull him back. The male is saying something, the only part of which Kylo Ren is awake enough to understand is “not the right time Dopheld.” In his arms Hux moans and turns over, pressing his pale, narrow face into the skin of Kylo Ren’s throat, nuzzling. He feels his morning hardness press into Hux’s flesh. He shifts his hips back.

“Supreme Leader, Sir!” the officer manages a passable salute, though breaks it off early to grab the blanket slipping from his shoulders. He considers killing him. 

The Stormtroopers are making noises of distress, doubling their efforts and nearly dragging the dark haired man out of the dwelling. They are starting to get loud. Hux huffs out a noise against his throat and mumbles “What is going on?”

“General Hux, Sir!” the officer squawks, momentarily disappearing from the doorway before managing to shrug off his paramours, along with his blanket, and scramble into the room.

Kylo Ren reaches for the Dark Side, ignoring the sting after channelling the Light, and prepares to strike. Hux stops him by sitting up, the blankets pooling around his skinny waist. In the morning light the bruises around his throat show up dark, too dark, though they are starting to fade.

“Lieutenant Mitaka, report,” the redhead says, yawning. The man is hardly the picture of untouchable authority. His cock isn’t getting any less hard looking at him.

“Sir!” another salute. “Yesterday evening the Finalizer received a communique from the Rectitude. We were coming to report to you when the, um, _incident_ occurred.”

Worry starts. He sits up, readjusting the blankets to hide his arousal. He is aware of Hux shivering as his breath fans the redhead’s neck. He is aware of the dark-haired officer flushing, eyes darkening. He is aware of the Stormtroopers peering in, apprehensive. Then all he is aware of is the comm-device the officer, Mitaka apparently- if he can remember the name, is taking from his pocket. A woman’s weak voice rings through the dwelling.

_“This is Lieutenant Fal Maroos of the Rectitude. I’ve always, I’ve always valued doing things properly, but I’m sorry, I can’t remember how I’m supposed to do this. Our Captain is dead. Myself and a couple of officers, we’re, we’re trying to get to the escape pods. I don’t think we’ll make it. I’ve been shot. Um. Sorry. I. We, must tell you. You have been betrayed. Um. Oh dear, there they are. Um. We just want to say, so you know, so it’s official, um, General Hux, in death as in life, we remain loyal.”_


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all to those who are still reading this, leaving kudos and comments. Or even just bookmarking or subscribing to it. It means more to me than I can coherantly express. 
> 
> The story is moving into new territory now, away from the island. I not sure whether I should end this fic here and start another one for the next part or just continue on. Either way I am also thinking of changing the title, not much mind you, but a bit. I just thought I'd warn you ahead of time.
> 
> Anyway, thanks again. I hope you enjoy the chapter.
> 
> Also, it's probably already apparent that I'm mainly working off movie canon, with a bit cherry-picked from other sources, and making most of the rest of it up. Just thought I'd warn anyone who is invested in the canon of the extended universe. I know it can be annoying when writers ignore things we consider canonical to do their own thing.

The entire dwelling seems to shake. He can feel Kylo Ren behind him. It is like sitting in front of the engine of a Dreadnought. Energy seems to radiate out from the man. Neither hot nor cold. It makes his head buzz.

He feels scoured inside. He knows, understands, some of what the vision he had in the cave means, but he can’t deal with that knowledge now. He probably won’t have a chance to deal with it for a while. Time seems to be up. Their little vacation away from duty is ending. 

He should have known. Would have known. If he hadn’t felt so _damaged_ after Snoke’s death he would have stopped Kylo Ren from dragging them all the way out here. With the Supreme Leader dead they needed to show a united front, needed to display the strength and power of the First Order under their new Supreme Leader. They did not need to go chasing ghosts in the Force.

Perhaps he’s wrong. Perhaps this is not the mutiny he suspects, no, not mutiny. Fracturing. The dissolution into the various factions that have always existed in the First Order. His own faction was always Snoke’s faction. So was Kylo Ren’s. 

A crack appears in the floor, shattering its way up the wall. Behind him he can feel the Supreme Leader panting like a bull. The man’s breath blasts against the bare skin of his neck. In front of him he can see Lieutenant Mitaka standing tall, brave as he can be in the face of a man who terrifies him obviously losing his temper. He should be afraid himself. For some reason he’s not.

“Have we tried to contact the rest of the fleet?” he asks Mitaka.

“Yes Sir!” the lieutenant replies. “No response. That’s why we were coming to report to you.”

“I see. Return to the shuttle and prepare to launch. The Supreme Leader and myself will be with you shortly.”

“Yes Sir!” the man solutes, turns around, and virtually flees, the Stormtroopers chasing after.

“Supreme Leader, until we know more we must not make any assumptions,” he turns to face the other man. Kylo Ren is staring balefully off into the distance. Another crack appears. It feels like the whole island is rumbling. 

One of the creatures flutters in, chattering in alarm. She takes one look at the dark haired man and flutters straight out again. Squawking. 

“Supreme Leader!” Kylo Ren is not listening. His breath is hissing out between clenched teeth. He looks entirely too much like something which is about to explode. 

He turns over, kneeling up. Skin brushes skin. He is aware of it on the periphery of his mind. He reaches out, cups the other man’s head in his hands. “Supreme Leader! We must return to the fleet. Whatever has happened can be dealt with.”

It seems to break through. “Hux?” the man whispers, dark eyes focussing on his own. He nods. Yes, for better or worse he is Hux. The man squeezes his eyes shut, words biting out between clenched teeth. “If they have betrayed us I am going to kill them all.”

Something hurts at the words. “Yes,” he whispers. “I expect you will.” The man will kill him too one day, when he realises the things he’s done. 

He feels Kylo Ren shift beneath his hands. Breathing in, out, in. The man’s eyes open. “We must return to the shuttle.”

“Yes,” he replies, dropping his hands. The man struggles to his feet, Hux averts his eyes, still catching a glimpse of bare limbs, muscles, dark hair around a thick flaccid prick. He is not sure how he ended here. Has no memory of anything past being cold, fainting in front of the Mirror. They haven’t had sex, from what he can tell from how his body feels, not that he thinks that Kylo Ren would want to. It seems most likely that the other man was trying to keep him warm, but that would mean the man cares whether he lives or dies. 

A grunt of irritation from the other man. He looks over, looks away. Kylo Ren is standing naked in the middle of the room. A couple of strides and the man sticks his head out of the door and bellows “Where are our clothes?!”

Chattering erupts outside. 

“I don’t care if they’re still damp!” He turns, paces back inside. “Stupid things.”

He continues pacing, long legs making short work of the small space inside the dwelling. Hux tries not to look. The only adult men he has ever seen naked, aside from him himself and Snoke, were the men of his mother’s people when he was a child. Lounging around in the sun with their families and friends. Kylo Ren is a very different proposition.

He cannot help but notice that the dark-haired man is a lot better looking than Snoke. His body is strong, healthy, scarred but not as extremely as the older male’s had been. There had been something off about Snoke, something almost sick, something that part of his mind tells him came about through the older male’s reliance on the Dark Side. He supposes Kylo Ren will end up that way too. It seems a pity.

The door swings open again, admitting two of the creatures carrying piles of cloth. Their clothing, he supposes. Kylo Ren snatches a bundle out of one’s arms and starts to dress, movements rough. The other creature approaches him and holds its bundle out. He takes it, mumbling his thanks. 

He pushes the blankets away and stands. Kylo Ren pauses. He gets the strange impression that the man is looking at him. This time he ignores it, this is not like before, when he was sunbathing and there was no urgency. Shaking his underwear out of the damp pile he steps into them. The cloth sticks to his skin uncomfortably, making him feel cold. For a moment he’s back in front of the mirror, but he shakes the feeling off. His vest and shirt are equally unpleasant to put on, but when he reaches his trousers he finds them torn open, with no way to fasten them. He does the best he can with his belt.

When he’s dressed, feet in sodden boots, dry coat and greatcoat awkwardly shrugged on over the rest of his damp clothes, he feels like a child playing dress-up with no real understanding of exactly what he’s mimicking. He wants to scream. He doesn’t want to return to the shuttle, to the Finalizer, to being General Hux. 

“Come on,” the Supreme Leader orders, fully dressed himself.

He follows the man out of the dwelling, stepping over one of the cracks in the floor. The creatures are all gathered around, looking at them with concern. He waves goodbye at them, trying to hide it from the Supreme Leader. 

They are almost out of the settlement when suddenly Kylo Ren stops. The man swears softly under his breath and whirls around, marching back towards the dwelling where Luke Skywalker must have spent his last years. Hux follows, curious.

He peers inside to see Kylo Ren grabbing everything in sight, everything that remains that must have once belonged to his uncle, and bundling it into the blanket from the bed. The man stops. Pauses. His dark eyes squeeze shut. A deep breath. He marches out of the dwelling, pushing past Hux, heading back to the shuttle. Hux follows.

A creature, the one who put the little animal on his lap to pet, approaches. She’s carrying a plate with parcels of flatbread and fish and a cloth wrapped parcel. She hands the two to him with a soft churr. “Thank you,” he says, softly. He wonders if she can sense how much he wants to stay.

She pets his hand, and he gets a strange impression, something like a whisper. _“Take care. Keep safe. We will be here if you need us.”_

“Hux!” the Supreme Leader bellows, staring back at him with impatience. 

“Sorry,” he says to the creature, and hurries after Kylo Ren.


End file.
